Rico
Biochar field photo credit: www.css.cornell.edu
Biochar is a charcoal produced from biomass that can store carbon. It is of increasing interest because of concerns about global warming caused by emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
In some cases, the term is used specifically to mean biomass charcoal produced via pyrolysis. Biochar may be an immediate solution to reducing the global impact of farming (and in reducing the impact from all agricultural waste). The burning and decomposition of trees and agricultural matter contributes a large amount of CO2 to the atmosphere and greatly impacts global climate change.
Biochar can store this CO2 in the ground and the presence of the biochar in the earth increases soil productivity, which will allow farmers to stop encroaching on rainforests as a source of more fertile farmland. As a result of significant product variations due to varying technology, process conditions, and feedstock compositions, biochar can not be considered a commodity product. Biochar is sold under a range of brand names such as the well-known global brand name and US registered trademark Agrichar™ which relates to Biochar produced from the BEST Energies proprietary slow pyrolysis process.
2 comments:
Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!
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, 10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too. Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration.
Indeed, Dr. James Hansen, NASA's top Atmospheric authority, is now placing it in the center stage of pro-active solutions for the climate crisis.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf
I hope you will come to share my passion in getting the word out on the wonderful solutions provided by TP soils.
I'm sort of the TP list (and data base at REPP-CREST) cub reporter, most all my list postings, under shengar@aol.com, are news items, collaborative work, lobbying efforts with government, writers and journals.
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
The new Yahoo Biochar discussion group;
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/b...guid=122501696
Charles Mann ("1491")in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
I think Biochar has climbed the pinnacle, the Combined English and other language circulation of NGM is nearly nine million monthly with more than fifty million readers monthly!
We need to encourage more coverage now, to ride Mann's coattails to public critical mass.
Please put this (soil) bug in your colleague's ears. These issues need to gain traction among all the various disciplines who have an iron in this fire.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/mann-text
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.
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
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinformationevents/newlegislation.html
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.
( Update; In conference the $500 M was cut to $3M....:( :( :( )
Tackling Climate Change in the U.S.
Potential Carbon Emissions Reductions from Biomass by 2030by Ralph P. Overend, Ph.D. and Anelia Milbrandt
National Renewable Energy Laboratory
http://www.ases.org/climatechange/toc/07_biomass.pdf
The organization 25x25 released it's (first-ever, 55-page )"Action Plan" ; see; http://www.25x25.org/storage/25x25/documents/IP%20Documents/ActionPlanFinalWEB_04-19-07.pdf
On page 29 , as one of four foci for recommended RD&D, the plan lists: "The development of biochar, animal agriculture residues and other non-fossil fuel based fertilizers, toward the end of integrating energy production with enhanced soil quality and carbon sequestration."
and on p 32, recommended as part of an expanded database aspect of infrastructure: "Information on the application of carbon as fertilizer and existing carbon credit trading systems."
I feel 25x25 is now the premier US advocacy organization for all forms of renewable energy, but way out in front on biomass topics.
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.
Even with all the big corporations coming to the GHG negotiation table, like Exxon, Alcoa, .etc, we still need to keep watch as they try to influence how carbon management is legislated in the USA. Carbon must have a fair price, that fair price and the changes in the view of how the soil carbon cycle now can be used as a massive sink verses it now being viewed as a wash, will be of particular value to farmers and a global cool breath of fresh air for us all.
If you have any other questions please feel free to call me or visit the TP web site and data base 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 many others.
The mail list discusions are now divided ;
Biochar for the soil
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar/?yguid=122501696
Biochar for Climate Change remediation.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biochar-climatechange/?yguid=351069571
Also Here is the Latest BIG Terra Preta Soil news;
ConocoPhillips Establishes $22.5 Million Pyrolysis Program at Iowa State
http://www.conocophillips.com/newsroom/news_releases/2007news/04-10-2007.htm
Glomalin, the recently discovered soil protien, may be the secret to to TP soils productivity;
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/pr/2003/030205.htm
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
Terra Preta Soils Technology To Master the Carbon Cycle
Man has been controlling the carbon cycle , and there for the weather, since the invention of agriculture, all be it was as unintentional, as our current airliner contrails are in affecting global dimming. This unintentional warm stability in climate has over 10,000 years, allowed us to develop to the point that now we know what we did,............ and that now......... we are over doing it.
The prehistoric and historic records gives a logical thrust for soil carbon sequestration.
I wonder what the soil biome carbon concentration was REALLY like before the cutting and burning of the world's forest, my guess is that now we see a severely diminished community, and that only very recent Ag practices like no-till and reforestation have started to help rebuild it. It makes implementing Terra Preta soil technology like an act of penitence, a returning of the misplaced carbon to where it belongs.
Energy, the carbon cycle and greenhouse gas management;
http://www.computare.org/Support%20documents/Fora%20Input/CCC2006/Energy%20Paper%2006_05.htm
On the Scale of CO2 remediation:
It is my understanding that atmospheric CO2 stands at 379 PPM, to stabilize the climate we need to reduce it to 350 PPM by the removal of 230 Billion tons of carbon.
The best estimates I've found are that the total loss of forest and soil carbon (combined
pre-industrial and industrial) has been about 200-240 billion tons. Of
that, the soils are estimated to account for about 1/3, and the vegetation
the other 2/3.
Since man controls 24 billion tons in his agriculture then it seems we have plenty to work with in sequestering our fossil fuel CO2 emissions as stable charcoal in the soil.
As Dr. Lehmann at Cornell points out, "Closed-Loop Pyrolysis systems such as Dr. Danny Day's are the only way to make a fuel that is actually carbon negative". and that " a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions! "
Terra Preta Soils Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration, 10X Lower CH4 & N2O soil emissions, and 3X FertilityToo
This some what orphaned new soil technology speaks to so many different interests and disciplines that it has not been embraced fully by any. I'm sure you will see both the potential of this system and the convergence needed for it's implementation.
The integrated energy strategy offered by Charcoal based Terra Preta Soil technology may
provide the only path to sustain our agricultural and fossil fueled power
structure without climate degradation, other than nuclear power.
The economics look good, and truly great if we had CO2 cap & trade or a Carbon tax in place.
.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 100,000 self-selected folks. ( I post everything I find on Amazon Dark Soils, ADS here):
http://forums.hypography.com/earth-science/3451-terra-preta.html
There is an ecology going on in these soils that is not completely understood, and if replicated and applied at scale would have multiple benefits for farmers and environmentalist.
Terra Preta creates a terrestrial carbon reef at a microscopic level. The nanoscale structures provide space for cations, the micro spaces, safe havens 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.
The reason TP has elicited such interest on the Agricultural/horticultural side of it's benefits is this one static:
One gram of charcoal cooked to 650 C Has a surface area of 400 m2 (for soil microbes & fungus to live on), now for conversion fun:
One ton of charcoal has a surface area of 400,000 Acres!! which is equal to 625 square miles!! Rockingham Co. VA. , where I live, is only 851 Sq. miles
Now at a middle of the road application rate of 2 lbs/sq ft (which equals 1000 sqft/ton) or 43 tons/acre yields 26,000 Sq miles of surface area per Acre. VA is 39,594 Sq miles.
What this suggest to me is a potential of sequestering virgin forest amounts of carbon just in the soil alone, without counting the forest on top.
To take just one fairly representative example, in the classic Rothampstead experiments in England where arable land was allowed to revert to deciduous temperate woodland, soil organic carbon increased 300-400% from around 20 t/ha to 60-80 t/ha (or about 20-40 tons per acre) in less than a century (Jenkinson & Rayner 1977). The rapidity with which organic carbon can build up in soils is also indicated by examples of buried steppe soils formed during short-lived interstadial phases in Russia and Ukraine. Even though such warm, relatively moist phases usually lasted only a few hundred years, and started out from the skeletal loess desert/semi-desert soils of glacial conditions (with which they are inter-leaved), these buried steppe soils have all the rich organic content of a present-day chernozem soil that has had many thousands of years to build up its carbon (E. Zelikson, Russian Academy of Sciences, pers. comm., May 1994). http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/carbon1.html
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/
Australian Bio Chars
Australian Biochars was incorporated by Paul Conyers and Jerome Matthews and has a number of associates within S.E. Asia many of whom were involved with the EU sponsored Cogen 3 project.
Paul is a long-time business consultant whose imagination has been captured by the prospect of soil carbon both increasing crop yields and capturing greenhouse gasses while Jerome, after many years as a lawyer, became concerned about the pollution caused by agriwaste, particularly rice husk, of which more than 150 million tonnes is generated annually.http://www.biochars.com/
EcoCarbons ; http://convertorganicwaste.com/about/
Renewable Oil International® LLC (ROI) is a company dedicated to developing Advanced Fast Pyrolysis Biorefinery Technology to cost effectively fractionate wood and other types of biomass into high-value products.
They will soon demonstrate their mobile unit in association with the National Biomass Producers Association.
http://www.renewableoil.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. It's ironic
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
Total CO2 Equivalence of Biochar Soil Sequestration:
Even before the total CO2 equivalent credits are validated they should be on the product label. Once a commercial bagged soil amendment product, every suburban household can do it,
The label can tell them of their contribution, a 40# bag = 150# CO2 = 160 bags / year to cover my personal CO2 emissions.( 20,000 #/yr , 1/2 average)
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html
Full carbon credit validation should easily follow the path that has garnered carbon credits for no-till practices which raise Soil organic matter (SOM, Humus & Glomalins)
But that is just the Carbon!
I have yet to find a total CO2 equivalent number taking consideration against some average field N2O & CH4 emissions. The New Zealand work shows 10X reductions.
If biochar also proves to be effective at reducing nutrient run-off from agricultural soils, then there will also be a reduction in downstream N2O emissions .
This ACS study implicates soil structure & N2O connection;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Paper41955.html
Last year there were no Biochar studies at ACS conference, several dozen this year in Huston;
Biochar at ACS;
Most all this work corroborates char dynamics we have seen so far . The soil GHG emissions work showing increased CO2 , also speculates that this CO2 has to get through the hungry plants above before becoming a GHG.
The SOM, MYC& Microbes, N2O (soil structure), CH4 , nutrient holding , Nitrogen shock, humic compound conditioning, absorbing of herbicides all pretty much what we expected to hear.
Biochar Studies at ACS Huston meeting;
578-I: http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4231.html
579-II http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4496.html
665 - III. http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4497.html
666-IV http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4498.html
Biochar Grants:
http://www.biochar-international.org/policyintheus.html
CSREES Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI)
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/business/reporting/stakeholder/an_stakeholder_afri.html
Sustainable Agriculture;
The goals of sustainable agriculture are to provide a more profitable farm income, to promote environmental stewardship, and to enhance the quality of life for farm families and their communities. CSREES promotes sustainable agriculture through national program leadership and funding for research and extension. It offers competitive grants programs and a professional development program, and it collaborates with other federal agencies through the USDA Sustainable Development Council.
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/sustainableagriculture.cfm
Natural Resources & Environment (NRE), ( this seems the best fit for Biochar)
NRE programs strengthen the nation's capacity to address critical environmental priorities and contribute to improved air, soil, and water quality; fish and wildlife management; enhanced aquatic and other ecosystems; the sustainable use and management of forests, rangelands, watersheds, and other renewable natural resources; and a better understanding of global climate change, including its impact on the diversity of plant and animal life. NRE programs also demonstrate the benefits and opportunities of sustainable development, and contribute to the economic viability of agriculture and rural communities realizing the impact of environmental policies and regulations.
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/nea/nre/nre_all.html
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
1047 Dave Berry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
540 289 9750
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