[quote=saltydog]
...net is the same: a little biochar is a net efficiency gain to all the soil processes involved. What is lost in a little raw wood is more than gained in retention of more complex and concentrated nutrients, for the micros and the macros.[/quote]
The energy from forming CO2 from C can go to heat your water or to the metabolism of the organisms decomposing material in the soil. There is no gain from burning the fuel and no break even.
[quote=saltydog] That's one reason periodic ground fires are not only survivable but necessary. Its also a reason for the phenomenal fertility of the American Midwest
Of course if one is more comfortable in regulation for the lowest common denominator, let's just stay with the status quo: a rule is always easier to enforce than to improve.[/quote]
We aren't discussing restrictions in the American Midwest or regulating to the lowest common denominator, but marginal soils at the tops of mountains and in areas at lower elevations where overuse has consumed the down wood and campers have been removing the duff from soil already. Those are the "places that don't have carbon to spare". Those are the places the regulations address. No one has suggested that you shouldn't sell stoves in the American Midwest or the Sierra, only that the people who use them should consider how to do so responsibly in consideration of the local conditions. Is there some reason you think your customers aren't up to that?
Dale B. Dalrymple
