Biochar Offers Answer for Healthy Soil and Carbon Sequestration
by Tim McGee, Helena, MT, USA on 03.23.08
Deep, rich, black soil is a farmers dream come true. Healthy soil is full of life, with entire communities living just below our feet. Healthy soil can retain and purify water, provide an abundance of food, and even act as way to sequester carbon dioxide. One key to getting there is amending soil with biochar. Biochar is what you get when biomass is heated in the absence of oxygen through a process called pyrolysis. When incorporated into soil, biochar provides the structural habitat needed for a rich community of micro-organisms to take hold. Incorporating biochar into soil can also act as a way to sequester carbon.
Carbon dioxide sequestration was not likely the original goal of biochar, or terra preta, developed thousands of years ago by the Native Americans in the Amazon region. But today, as we recognize the cost of emitting green house gases, we also recognize the wisdom of using biochar as micro-habitat to improve our soils. Biochar is a classic win-win scenario, a solution that can provide us with a valuable tool for fighting climate change, world hunger, poverty, and energy shortages all at the same time. Sound good?
Tim Flannery, a regular fixture here at TreeHugger, was interviewed this week by Beyond Zero (Listen to the Podcast), and discussed the benefits of biochar, or terra preta, as a sequestration technique.
One of the clear benefits Tim sees of biochar for carbon dioxide sequestration is that it is easily measured. You can literally weigh the carbon before you use it for soil amendment. This ease of measurement makes biochar easy to manage in any carbon sequestration calculations, which are notoriously difficult to quantify.
Another point Tim made is that when biochar is added to the soil, it is at a much lower risk of returning to the atmosphere than if it were carbon in a living forest. Biochar is mostly inert, and is known to stay in the soil for thousands of years. It is also not subjected to the risk of being blown down in a hurricane, or cut down, or otherwise placed in a process for a more rapid return of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
As a sequestration technology, biochar is simple, easy, and proven. Although sequestration alone might be enough of a reason to consider biochar, the benefits of biochar in agriculture are really the reason this solution is gaining momentum quickly. The use of biochar has been shown to increase water retention, microbial activity, uptake of minerals by plants, as well as continued deposition of healthy soil. Two new organizations have emerged that highlight the multi-faceted solution of biochar.
The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) has emerged as the center for biochar research and development. The IBI:
"Provides a platform for the international exchange of information and activities in support of biochar research, development, demonstration and commercialization. It advocates biochar as a strategy to:* improve the Earth’s soils;
* help mitigate the anthropogenic greenhouse effect by reducing greenhouse gas emissions and sequestering atmospheric carbon in a stable soil carbon pool; and
* improve water quality by retaining agrochemicals.The IBI also promotes:
*sustainable co-production of clean energy and other bio-based products as part of the biochar process;
* efficient biomass utilization in developing country agriculture; and
* cost-effective utilization of urban, agricultural and forest co products."
Biochar begins to answer problems surrounding biodiversity, water purity, deforestation, hunger, and poverty. As we recognize the 'services' healthy soil can provide biochar continues to gain value as a strategy to mitigate many of these issues at the same time. Another important new organization centered around biochar as a multi-faceted solution is the Biochar Fund.
"The Biochar Fund is a social profit fund that completely changes the way in which chronic hunger, deforestation, energy access and climate change are addressed amongst the world's poorest populations: small subsistence farmers at the tropical forest frontier. The fund's systemic interventions create a synergy that breaks and reverses an environmentally destructive, unsustainable and socially catastrophic land use cycle. By doing so, we help communities gain the knowledge, tools and financial means needed to lift themselves out of poverty once and for all. Simultaneously, the biochar concept has the capacity to help tackle climate change in a significant and cost-effective way. It allows us to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."
Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The Nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.” Biochar offers us the opportunity to stop destroying our soils, enhance the communities that live under our feet, and create sustainable human communities as well. For more on biochar and recent developments please follow the links below to a wealth of information.
:: Beyond Zero Emissions
:: The International Biochar Initiative (IBI)
:: Biochar Fund
As a farmer, I understand clearly that the sustainability of soil is critical to food production. But you did not really explain what Biochar is, or what kind of soil amendment it is. How is it produced? Where does it come from? What nutrients does it supply to support growth? I need a primer on the whole cycle. This article, while informative, didn't address that, so it makes me a teensy bit suspicious. Did I miss something?
@Farmer Red
All very good questions, and I'm no expert. Previous articles have gone into more depth on these issues, and the links at the bottom really get to your questions, but to quickly answer your questions from what I understand:
What is Biochar?
It is the result of heating waste cellulosic materials in an environment without oxygen, known as pyrolysis, it makes a kind of charcoal, preferably out of unused plant material.
What kind of soil amendment it is?
The resulting charcoal from biochar, is porous and provides a very good medium for bacteria and microbes to find nooks and crannies to grow. This additional surface area provided by the porous charcoal results in a richer community of micro-organisms, this community of organisms increases fertility of the soil, and availability of nutrients.
How is it produced?
It is produced by heating biomass without much available oxygen...there are many methods of heating the biomass from solar, to more traditional heating technologies.
Where does it come from?
It should be local. It is an example of a positive feedback loop. Taking biomass from a field and creating biochar, gives fuel and biochar. Adding this biochar back to the same field increases productivity of the area, creating more biomass. Etc. The process does not go on forever, but it can be a way to increase productivity locally..
What nutrients does it supply to growth?
Biochar has been shown to increase uptake of Ca , K , Mg and P.
I hope that helps a bit. The wikipedia page on 'biochar' has many links and primers on the subject.
try searching for terra preta farmer. apparently the charcoal adsorbs all manner of nutrients preventing them leaching out , and making a safe haven for microorganisms from which to spread out through the soil.
i have been adding charcoal to my compost raised beds accidentally for a decade with the ash from an inneficient woodburner, it makes them lovely and dark, and they dont seem to loose fertility or bulk like they should. i noticed this a couple of years ago and now i know why, i am chuffed to bits.
even the us gov are investigating!
http://del.icio.us/search/?fr=del_icio_us&p=terrapreta&type=all
When it comes to "geoengineering", biochar is one of two or three paths that merit immediate action, along with reflective roofing as part of building code for most of the globe and permaculture. See: http://energysmart.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/geoengineering-basic-principles-some-thoughts-some-questions/ .
When it comes to "geoengineering", biochar is one of two or three paths that merit immediate action, along with reflective roofing as part of building code for most of the globe and permaculture. See: http://energysmart.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/geoengineering-basic-principles-some-thoughts-some-questions/ .
So its the farms that are suppose to bail industry out. By burring carbon so it stays out of the atmosphere.
If Biochar is anything like activated charcoal, than yes it will have a HUGE surface area (just one gram of activated carbon has a surface area of approximately 500 m²). I have also heard that this helps to retain water moisture.
There are ways of adding carbon back to the soils without turning it into biochar (ie. no till methods) but maybe biochar is better.
The best Win Win Win solution is Biochar.
the current news and links on Terra Preta (TP) soils and closed-loop pyrolysis of Biomass, this integrated virtuous cycle could sequester 100s of Billions of tons of carbon to the soils.
This technology represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.Terra Preta Soils a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 1/3 Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
UN Climate Change Conference: Biochar present at the Bali Conference
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/steinerbalinov2107
SCIAM Article May 15 07;
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=5670236C-E7F2-99DF-3E2163B9FB144E40
After many years of reviewing solutions to anthropogenic global warming (AGW) I believe this technology can manage Carbon for the greatest collective benefit at the lowest economic price, on vast scales. It just needs to be seen by ethical globally minded companies.
Could you please consider looking for a champion for this orphaned Terra Preta Carbon Soil Technology.
The main hurtle now is to change the current perspective held by the IPCC that the soil carbon cycle is a wash, to one in which soil can be used as a massive and ubiquitous Carbon sink via Charcoal Below are the first concrete steps in that direction;
S.1884 – The Salazar Harvesting Energy Act of 2007
A Summary of Biochar Provisions in S.1884:
Carbon-Negative Biomass Energy and Soil Quality Initiative
for the 2007 Farm Bill
Bolstering Biomass and Biochar development: In the 2007 Farm Bill, Senator Salazar was able to include $500 million for biomass research and development and for competitive grants to develop the technologies and processes necessary for the commercial production of biofuels and bio-based products. Biomass is an organic material, usually referring to plant matter or animal waste. Using biomass for energy can reduce waste and air pollution. Biochar is a byproduct of producing energy from biomass. As a soil treatment, it enhances the ability of soil to capture and retain carbon dioxide.
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinformationevents/newlegislation.html
There are 24 billion tons of carbon controlled by man in his agriculture and waste stream, all that farm & cellulose waste which is now dumped to rot or digested or combusted and ultimately returned to the atmosphere as GHG should be returned to the Soil.
If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site I've been drafted to co-administer. http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
It has been immensely gratifying to see all the major players join the mail list , Cornell folks, T. Beer of Kings Ford Charcoal (Clorox), Novozyne the M-Roots guys(fungus), chemical engineers, Dr. Danny Day of EPRIDA , Dr. Antal of U. of H., Virginia Tech folks and probably many others who's back round I don't know have joined.
The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) conference held at Terrigal, NSW, Australia in 2007. The papers from this conference are posted at their home page; http://www.biochar-international.org/home.html
.Nature article, Aug 06: Putting the carbon back Black is the new green:
http://bestenergies.com/downloads/naturemag_200604.pdf
Here's the Cornell page for an over view:
http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/biochar/Biochar_home.htm
University of Beyreuth TP Program, Germany http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=taxonomy/term/118
This Earth Science Forum thread on these soils contains further links, and has been viewed by 19,000 self-selected folks. ( I post everything I find on Amazon Dark Soils, ADS here):
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/3451-terra-preta.html
Terra Preta creates a terrestrial carbon reef at a microscopic level. These nanoscale structures provide safe haven to the microbes and fungus that facilitate fertile soil creation, while sequestering carbon for many hundred if not thousands of years. The combination of these two forms of sequestration would also increase the growth rate and natural sequestration effort of growing plants.
All the Biochar Companies and equipment manufactures I've found:
Carbon Diversion
http://www.carbondiversion.com/
Eprida: Sustainable Solutions for Global Concerns
http://www.eprida.com/home/index.php4
BEST Pyrolysis, Inc. | Slow Pyrolysis - Biomass - Clean Energy - Renewable Ene
http://www.bestenergies.com/companies/bestpyrolysis.html
Dynamotive Energy Systems | The Evolution of Energy
http://www.dynamotive.com/
Ensyn - Environmentally Friendly Energy and Chemicals
http://www.ensyn.com/who/ensyn.htm
Agri-Therm, developing bio oils from agricultural waste
http://www.agri-therm.com/
Advanced BioRefinery Inc.
http://www.advbiorefineryinc.ca/
Technology Review: Turning Slash into Cash
http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/17298/
3R Environmental Technologies Ltd. (Edward Someus)
WEB: http://www.terrenum.net/
The company has Swedish origin and developing/designing medium and large scale carbonization units. The company is the licensor and technology provider to NviroClean Tech Ltd British American organization WEB: http://www.nvirocleantech.com and VERTUS Ltd.
http://www.vertustechnologies.com
Genesis Industries, licensee of Eprida technology, provides carbon-negative EPRIDA energy machines at the same cost as going direct to Eprida. Our technical support staff also provide information to obtain the best use of biochar produced by the machine. Recent research has shown that EPRIDA charcoal (biochar) increases plant productivity as it sequesters carbon in soil, thus reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
http://www.egenindustries.com/
If pre-Columbian Kayopo Indians could produce these soils up to 6 feet deep over 15% of the Amazon basin using "Slash & CHAR" verses "Slash & Burn", it seems that our energy and agricultural industries could also product them at scale.
Harnessing the work of this vast number of microbes and fungi changes the whole equation of energy return over energy input (EROEI) for food and Bio fuels. I see this as the only sustainable agricultural strategy if we no longer have cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer.
We need this super community of wee beasties to work in concert with us by populating them into their proper Soil horizon Carbon Condos.
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
1047 Dave Berry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
(540) 289-9750
shengar@aol.com
I've got other questions about this, what's the pH or kH reading on Biochar?
Or on a chemical level is it just Charcoal derived from used plant biomass?
And with regards to Red's last question, I'm guessing you mean to say in increases mineral uptake(how exactly?) but do these minerals already have to be in the soil? i.e. do i still need to fertilize if i'm using Biochar?
See also
http://hypography.com/forums/terra-preta.html
AND
Terrapreta mailing list
Terrapreta@bioenergylists.org
http://bioenergylists.org/mailman/listinfo/terrapreta_bioenergylists.org
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org
http://info.bioenergylists.org
You can still find charred stump fragments from forests fires that swept the virgin growth clearcuts of the 1880's. Bacteria don't break down carbonized wood very fast. The result of "biochar" is simply to sequester carbon for a longer period.
But there is a major drawback that all the commenters are overlooking.
It would be fine if biochar producers used the wood to gain heat energy and put it to good use, plus, collected the methanol distillate, reacted the carbon monoxide and "wood tar" (which is a strong carcinogen) to produce benign products and THEN spread the char. Running the process like a chemical reactor would produce low air emissions and keep human exposure to toxic effluents to a minimum.
But we all know that amateur product efforts will not do these things and the result is likely to be a very dangerous thing for air quality and human health.
Clearly, the mass scale production of biochar needs to be EPA and state regulated with a permit process. If this is not done, we will end up with a mess that is analogous to animal feedlot offgassing.
Will someone explain to me how this process is any different from composting the biomass or tilling the biomass under the soil? Both of those methods of soil carbon sequestration require very little energy (outside of fuel for harvesting/tilling the biomass) and do essentially the same thing - whereas the BioChar process requires the harvesting energy plus the energy for baking the biomass.
Seems to me like this is more green snake oil brought to us by the same thinking that has gotten us into this biofuels mess.
xns, charcoal is slightly alkaline, but actually acts more as a 'neutraliser', correcting both acid and heavily alkaline soils. i dont know the chemistry but assume its due to its immense storage capacity for all size particles from ions up to bacteria. i have been putting it in the bottom of pots to 'sweeten' the compost for decades.
patty, charcoal is a product of a very efficient process called pyrolisis, which burns the volatile fraction of the plant fuel and leaves a deal of the carbon, producing heat, a liquid fuel and charcoal. its used for several district heating plants in sweden. on the amateur side, there are very many women who cook on open fires every day, funding communities to build rocket stoves would double fuel efficiency and also produce more char in the ash, to be spread on garden plots as i do.
i think the big problem will be all having the discipline not to burn such a prime fuel as charcoal.
xns, charcoal is slightly alkaline, but actually acts more as a 'neutraliser', correcting both acid and heavily alkaline soils. i dont know the chemistry but assume its due to its immense storage capacity for all size particles from ions up to bacteria. i have been putting it in the bottom of pots to 'sweeten' the compost for decades.
patty, charcoal is a product of a very efficient process called pyrolisis, which burns the volatile fraction of the plant fuel and leaves a deal of the carbon, producing heat, a liquid fuel and charcoal. its used for several district heating plants in sweden. on the amateur side, there are very many women who cook on open fires every day, funding communities to build rocket stoves would double fuel efficiency and also produce more char in the ash, to be spread on garden plots as i do.
i think the big problem will be all having the discipline not to burn such a prime fuel as charcoal.
Also see
http://www.e-alkalinesoilsterrapreta.blogspot.com/
http://e-terrapreta.blogspot.com/
http://e-terrapretarooftopexp.blogspot.com/
http://e-charcoalmakingprocess.blogspot.com/
http://e-charcoalmaking.blogspot.com/
GEOECOLOGY ENERGY ORGANISATION [GEO]
> "i think the big problem will be all having the discipline not to burn such a prime fuel as charcoal."
Agreed.
Google
bagasse charcoal "amy smith"
for an effort to do just that.
I held an on line forum this last August concerning the production of the Dark Earth Soils, in part to generate interest in experimentation with these valuabe soils. But, I was also interested in countering the increasingly common belief that their production is simply a matter of adding charcoal to the soil.
These soils are high in charred biomass, that is true. They are also high in stable humus. The charcoal can remain stable for possibly thousands of years and the humus only hundreds of years. But, both components are important to the proper functioning of these soils. Together they sequester much more carbon that biochar alone.
If you would like to consider the importance of adding both formas of organic carbon to the soil, I will gladly share information with you. Please, do not put forward a simplie fix which, although it will sequester much carbon, will not provide a comprehensive solution to the worlds food production problems. We can do better.
mel landers
Jinotepe, Nicaragua
Farmer Red, I think you're laboring under the the old paradigm of better living through chemistry. This stuff does not add nutrient value; it adds to your CEC (ability of the soil to store nutrients). In an organic system, the biology of the soil produces weak acids that etch off these nutrients, much as they do from regular soil. Fertility as Mother intended. In a chemical system, the chemical nutrients bypass the biology (and it's a good thing, as the ammonium nitrate (which is a salt) kills all the biology nearly instantly!) and feed the plant directly (at least the 30% or so that actually goes on target). Remove the chemical fertilizer and you now have nothing in the soil to feed plants and they collapse instantly.
Using this biochar in congress with both humic and biological inputs creates soil that supports plant growth indefinitely; there are farmers in Mexico farming terra preta fields created by the Aztecs and Mayans in those infamously infertile rainforest soils. Try thousands of years of growth from your compost heap, Peppermint Patty...and keep in mimnd that your compost heap sequesters carbon for about ten years tops; biochar sequesters for thousands of years...
Hopefully this will all herald a more realistic approach to carbon sequestration. I've just seen some good charts on carbontracking.com that shoots some serious holes in the "trees as carbon sink solution" in terms of solving the near term problems.
/ Mike
Spot on Mike; much like Pepermint Patty's compost heap, trees offer only a limited sequestration; the lifetime of the tree and about ten years as it breaks down after its passing. And considering our current usage of forests we can't bet on long term storage there. I will disagree with Mike in as much tree storage would help with near term sequestration, but it does not solve long term issues.
With global warming eliminating permafrost and the inherent carbon storage there, we are looking at another 15 to 20% loss of soil stored carbon worldwide from that alone. This has not been factored in to many of the models out there and explains how warming has been exceeding the rate seen in these models. It is time to start looking at this problem as the impending disaster that it is, and adopting proven technologies immediately. This technology offers an easily utilized, quick methodology that offers long term results.
While other methods should not be overlooked, this technology is the only long-term stabilized solution I have seen to date. Sure, we could increase the respiration rate of phytoplankton or increase the biomass of vegetation, but these do not offer the long term carbon storage of bio-char. As it is originally designed as a part of an organic system, if it is used as such, it does more than just offer a carbon negative solution, it eliminates the fuel hungry Haber-Bosch method of fertilizer production and the eco-deadly use of pesticides and fungicides as well. This tool offers us a truly effective, full spectrum green solution to growing plants. And no, I don't work for a bio-char company...
@JL -
Excellent point about regulation of the process of biochar. I would also add that biochar is not just from wood, but other 'woody' biomass as well. As such, local conditions would likely alter the best practices around biochar production. Coordinating these efforts might be challenging, but workable.
@Dr. N. Sai Bhaskar Reddy -
Very interesting work done in India. I'm excited about GEO, and would like to learn more (currently reading the website).
@mel landers -
You are correct that creating terra preta, and functioning soils in general, is much more complicated than just adding biochar. Everything can always be more complicated, but there are simple truths that deserve attention.
It would be a mistake to just through down biochar and expect fertility, but I don't think that is the intent of anyone seriously involved in the field, nor any of the organizations mentioned in the article. I think helpfulgardener summed it up nicely:
"Using this biochar in congress with both humic and biological inputs creates soil that supports plant growth indefinitely"
I want to give a summery of my understanding of how this biochar can help. If you give micro-organisms room to grow they will then break down organic material and then this broke down goody bag can be used by plants to aid in growth. I dont know what (sequesters carbon ) really means, but I will try to define it as a place to hold carbon. It seems that it is a really good idea not to hard to comprehend. I do feel that it needs a nice easy un-rocket science way to be created and used and also people should be learned up on the process of its workings like how the biochar can help without using words and terms that only people in that area of study can understand. Kudos.!!!!.....
I want to give a summery of my understanding of how this biochar can help. If you give micro-organisms room to grow they will then break down organic material and then this broke down goody bag can be used by plants to aid in growth. I dont know what (sequesters carbon ) really means, but I will try to define it as a place to hold carbon. It seems that it is a really good idea not to hard to comprehend. I do feel that it needs a nice easy un-rocket science way to be created and used and also people should be learned up on the process of its workings like how the biochar can help without using words and terms that only people in that area of study can understand. Kudos.!!!!.....
You're most of the way there Lily...
Sequestering carbon is simply putting it into non-atmospheric storage, be it tying it up in a mineral form (like coal, petroleum or charcoal) or in a biological organism (like a protozoa, tree or person). Obviously there are varying lengths of time it gets sequestered based on what form it takes. Coal and petroleum take organic carbon and over a million plus years make it a mineral form, giving it nearly unlimited storage. Trees, compost or other organisms are obviously a much shorter storage facility...
That's why taking it out of that form and moving it back into the atmospheric cycle is so damaging to the environment; we are eliminating this millions year old storage and making more atmospheric carbon than the planet has ever seen (with the attendant result of global warming). Bio char is the only thing I have seen that allows us to sequester carbon at anything close to mineral form, with the inherently long stability of the mineral forms (still not as good as the original coal or petroleum, but that cat is out of the bag!) So it's not a place to hold carbon, but the actual carbon itself.
The other benefits of this form of carbon are an amazing ability to store large amounts of other molecules that attach themselves to the carbon molecules (which is why carbon is used in filtration). In an agricultural setting that can be fertilizers and other nutrients, increasing the storage capacity of the soil.
Charcoal is also incredibly porous, giving a huge surface area for biological critters (like bacteria, fungii and protozoa) to harbor and feed on each other. This is the first stage of what Dr. Elaine Ingham has coined the Soil Food Web (she has been known to call it the Poop Loop in lighter moments). Protozoa eat bacteria and poop, arthropods and worms eat protozoa and poop, and so on up the food chain, and at each stage there is a release of natural, plant available nitrogen. That's how Mother Nature feeds plants and it's the basis of organic culture (in a simplified version).
Bio-char is also a by-product of a particular method of bio-fuel production, so it is a method of sequestering carbon WHILE we produce fuel. The other by-product of this method is heat and some carbon gas emmission, which we could capture in a algal bio-fuel system, increasing that systems efficiency while recycling yet more carbon and heat. This would be not just carbon neutral; we could actually have carbon negative fuel using this model and eliminate the dangers of chemical inputs to agriculture and landscape! Sorry if that last bit jumped ahead a bit but this is the part that excites those of us who have been working towards this for a while. All this technology exists; we could do this tomorrow with the will and the market for it. I have waited a long time to see this come to pass and I can taste it it's so close...
I agree with the first comment. While the concept sounds very promising, there just is not enough information disclosed to allow the layman to make an educated guess as to the viability of Biochar.
I'm suprised this confuses you Play. Right from the article
"Another point Tim made is that when biochar is added to the soil, it is at a much lower risk of returning to the atmosphere than if it were carbon in a living forest. Biochar is mostly inert, and is known to stay in the soil for thousands of years."
That in itself makes this not just viable, but exemplary. You could get into the chemistry of just why that is so, but then we are getting beyond "laymen" terms. I am basing my enthusiasm on a turf management project we are working on with EPA and the National Park Service; we included bio-char in our process and we've seen increased nutrient capacity and a quicker-than-usual re-establishment of a badly damaged soil biology, leading to increased organic fertility. There isn't a chemical fertilizer or product that can do that; in fact it's quite the opposite...
Greetings from Australia,
Those of us engaged in broadacre farming (we manage most of the soil dedicated to agriculture or more than half the landmass) ask the first question that comes to mind: how much? How much do we need to use and how much does it cost? The answers given to us by our biochar people to date run to 10 tonnes/hectare @ $300 to $8000 per tonne. This would see a farmer growing wheat on 1000 Ha paying $3million (at $300/tonne,the price the biochar producers hope they can get it down to.) If I wanted to use it today I would have to pay $80million. Add to the mix he fact that the biochar model requires a supply of cheap or free biomass and it will be some time before it will be a viable option. So, short of a miracle, biochar as a soil ameliorant seems destined to niche applications. To make a major impact on the trajectory of Climate Change in the 10 years Sir Nicholas Sternhas given us, it would need to have reached critical mass by now and be deployed in rural districts throughout the world, close to the biomass it will need and the soils it will feed. It will not be deployed in time. Those of us dedicated to the regeneration of Australia's agricultural soils by rewarding farmers for the carbon they capture and store in it support the biochar movement. We are all of us dedicated to saving our soils. None of us can do it alone. Agricultural soils are fully deployed. If the 5.5billion hectares controlled by farmers could sequester 0.5tC/Ha, we could remove 10 gigatonnes of CO2e. But soil doesn't have the charisma of biochar to attract the patronage of celebrity scientists and soil mystics entranced by the fairytail origins of the biochar story. Given the potential of soils, any scientist, celebrity or not, has a professional duty to equip themselves with knowledge, even when it does not support their emotional predisposition. You might be surprised to learn that the words humis, homo, and humility come from the same Latin root word. Humility takes its meaning from the notion of a man with his feet on the ground.
Ok, I've got a wind turbine and I'm producing excess electricity that I need to use up... I also have the local tree trimming company deliver wood chips to my place for eventual compost - ditto from the local chicken farmer who brings manure. So give me the barebones...
Can I shovel some of the chips and manure into a steel drum, turn on a heating element and start a smoldering fire, close the drum (almost, but enough to provide oxygen for the pyrolysis from below and enough at the top to allow combustion gasses to escape (and possibly be used further) and after a few days when the fire goes out I have the good stuff which I then spread on my pastures and into my garden. Come to think of it, can I place coils around and or through the drum and run water through the mixture as it's pyrolizing to make hot water or will this "kill" the process?
Am I missing something? Is this a workable thing? Seems like I've already got all of the key ingredients. Comments appreciated.
Mike