Biochar: magic bullet? 14

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1. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 11:03 am
   27 Dec 2008

   Biochar - BB, not bullet
   
   Net gains from biochar not equal to gross. Adding biochar to soil lowers ability of rest of soil to hold carbon. Still net gain, but not as big of one.
   In non-tropical climates there is a limit to the percent of the soil that can be charcoal. Past a certain percent the ability of the soil to  grow crops is lowered - even if nitrogen is added. Only in tropical climates can charcoal be indefinitely added to the soil.  
   If biochar is produced by traditional charcoal making technology that you add a lot of black carbon and NOx to the atomosphere. The net result may produce more emissions than are fixed, especially since black carbon has much greater warming effects than CO2.  There are advanced charcoal making techniques, but these are capital intensive, which is a barrier in developing nations where much farming is subsidence farming.
   
   
   Bottom line. Biochar as real sequestration potential once we drastically lower our emissions. Biochar, along with other forms of agriculture and forestry carbon fixing might someday fix as much as 2% to 5% of our current annual emissions per year. If someday we can lower world emissions to near zero, various forms of forced bio-fixing of carbon may tip us over the edge into small net negative emissions. I doubt they can do more than that.  They certainly will never make drastic emissions reductions unneccesary.  

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2. 

   Pangolin Posted 4:08 pm
   27 Dec 2008

   Dissing the char, Gar?1. Net gains from biochar not equal to gross. Adding biochar to soil lowers ability of rest of soil to hold carbon. Still net gain, but not as big of one. Do we have a reference to a study that shows this in plot trials or are we relying on the very flawed study of char in boreal forest soils to paint a larger picture? As I recall that study only measured what happened to materials inside a net bag ignoring exchanges or changes outside the bag. Even the authors of that study cautioned that it had limited relevence.
   Is there a study that shows total biomass and carbon measures in soils that freeze? In temperate soils and tropical soils that don't freeze increases in biomass and soil carbon have been demonstrated by Lehmann.
   2. In non- tropical climates there is a limit to the percent of the soil that can be charcoal. Past a certain percent the ability of the soil to  grow crops is lowered - even if nitrogen is added. Only in tropical climates can charcoal be indefinitely added to the soil. If we have 10% or even 20% of a single hectare of soil as char anywhere the ground freezes I'd like to know where. That would be an increase in soil carbon well past anyones wildest dreams if averaged over all agricultural soils in any zone.
   3. If biochar is produced by traditional charcoal making technology that you add a lot of black carbon and NOx to the atomosphere. The net result may produce more emissions than are fixed, especially since black carbon has much greater warming effects than CO2.  There are advanced charcoal making techniques, but these are capital intensive, which is a barrier in developing nations where much farming is subsidence farming.This statement misses the massive improvements in stove and retort technology all over the net that utilize materials and methods widely available. Simple rocket stoves can be made from common pottery and sealed retorts require nothing more complicated than oil drums and plumbing fittings. It also ignores studies showing biochar significantly reducing GHG emissions from crop lands in field trials. Char production combined with improved stove technology should improve overall emissions profiles.
   Bottom line. Biochar as real sequestration potential once we drastically lower our emissions. Biochar, along with other forms of agriculture and forestry carbon fixing might someday fix as much as 2% to 5% of our current annual emissions per year. If someday we can lower world emissions to near zero, various forms of forced bio-fixing of carbon may tip us over the edge into small net negative emissions. I doubt they can do more than that.  They certainly will never make drastic emissions reductions unneccesary.Currently drastic emissions reductions are completely off the table. Given that biochar is the only carbon sequestration scheme that shows any potential for virtuous cycling it deserves a lot more research before it is casually dismissed. The truth is that we don't know how all of our various crops and soils will respond to biochar amendment because the field trials haven't been done.
   How do Washington wheat crops or Idaho potatoes respond to biochar? We don't know. It would be a really good idea to find out before we start converting farmland to biochar out of sheer desperation to do something about climate change. One thing we can be sure of; if biochar is found to work by third world farmers it will spread like wildfire. They aren't going to wait for studies if they see a neighbor pulling in better crops from char amended fields.  
   
   Put the Carbon Back

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3. 

   tlabadie Posted 1:38 am
   28 Dec 2008

   Already there's a fightBoth Gar and Pan need to provide references for some extraordinary claims. Especially for this one: "are we relying on the very flawed study of char in boreal forest soils to paint a larger picture?" How flawed please? Which study?
   And Pan, criticism is not dismissal.
   
   - The truth always sounds like what you already believe.

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4. 

   biodiversivist Posted 1:44 am
   28 Dec 2008

   Lay press entertainment piece"If biochar anything could be "massively applied" around the globe, we could end the emissions problem in one to two years."
   If we could get 6.7 billion to go vegan, live in small high rise apartments, stop deforestation, stop driving, stop having large families, and on and on we could also end the emissions problem. The problem is to find ways to get billions to move in the same direction. Any number of ideas would work if you could find a way to get billions of people to accept them. That is what a lot of this boils down to--implementability. Is that a real word?
   
   In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

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5. 

   Gar Lipow Posted 2:06 am
   28 Dec 2008

   Biochar freezesThere have been studies and problems occur at way less than 10%, under 1%. As to drastic emissions cuts being "off the table" what you mean is we are not doing it now. But we are not doing massive biochar now either. And, if you follow the link you will see right in the article an admission that there are problems, and the need for further research to solve them. Of those advocates who know what they are doing, not even the most optimistic thinks we are ready for full deployment everywhere today. But you know there is a lot tropical soil out there, so knowing how to do it right in the tropics is a damn good start.
   Also, being realistic about the potential is not "dissing" biochar or agricultural sequestration in general. Right now ag/forestry/land use change is responsible for at least 20% of ghg emissions. If we can change those sectors from a 20% emitter to a 1% or 2% sequestrator, that is close to a quarter of the problem tackled! That sure as hell is not an argument against biochar. It is an argument not to overestimate what it can contribute, and the importance of doing it right. Doing it right means using advanced methods of charcoal production that produce little air pollution and especially few NOx or black carbon emissions. It means doing it only in tropical climates. Also, it means not clear cutting forests to turn them to biochar, but using biochar to dispose of waste on existing agricultural land. For example all over world rice straw is burned after rice harvest, because rice fields won't absorb all waste straw generated. In place entire rice paddies and fields are burned in place to not only dispose of waste but get rid of pests. Supply these tropical rice farmers with advanced clean charcoal burners and pay them for using them, and you generate biochar in a setting where the downsides already exist. You still have to careful of social side effects. (I can think of lots ways this could hurt subsidence farmers, and end up as a major environmental justice issue. ) And since we DON'T know net as opposed to gross sequestration, no tradable offset generated. Give the farmers a straight subsidy. Don't generate permits to burn coal for doing this.
   You have to be as careful with social issues as technical ones. For example I can imagine this being deployed in a way that only rich farmers and corporations can take advantage of it, increasing their advantage over subsidence farmers. Or I can imagine  requirements put on it without adequate support that disrupt the lives of subsidence farmers who take advantage of it. The key is that if you have technology that works you need to still make sure the proposals for how to deploy it come from the communities, not from rich Notherners who don't understand the social networks they are introducing tech to. Also make sure that the downsides are clear to adapters so they can   decide what compensation is needed for it. For example, burning fields in place saves labor and kills pests. (It is also already a form of biochar, i.e. a highly polluting one.) Again, this is not a "don't do biochar". It is "do biochar right; doing it right is possible, but not simple". Also remember there is a lot we still don't know.

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6. 

   sunflower Posted 2:56 am
   28 Dec 2008

   A green sky is not good"Slower but steadily accumulating changes had been under way for thousands of years [AGW from agriculture], and the total effect of these earlier changes nearly  matched the explosive industrial era increases of the last century or two."
   Under a Green Sky by Peter Ward Ph.D., a Seattle area paleontologist writing about mass extinctions from CO2 causing Hydrogen sulfide from stagnant oceans killing sea and land based life, and destroying ozone thereby causing the extinction of most plants, plankton, and animal species.

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7. 

   racc Posted 9:31 am
   28 Dec 2008

   Magic BulletsBeware of magic bullets, they can misfire.

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8. 

   ThomC Posted 3:54 pm
   28 Dec 2008

   GasificationProducing Biochar can have a nice offtake in the form of syngas. The syngas could be used for power generation and if sourced from agricultural waste such as crop residues could offer substantial GHG reduction.
   The likely cost effective scenario would be a central gasifier processing agricultural residues within a 50 km radius.
   Alternatively instead of gasification one could go the pyrolysis route and capture the volatile which would happily run in a diesel.

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9. 

   amazingdrx Posted 5:40 pm
   28 Dec 2008

   Cascade"...this boils down to--implementability. Is that a real word?"
   Is it a cascade effect, like bees swarming? The hive decides it's time for radical change and moves.  
   Is change like this triggered by key intuitions  bouncing around the collective subsconscious?
   The value system flips to a new state in a very short time span, like it happened at the start of WW II.  Or suddenly 80% of US believing the Iraq invasion was necessary.
   When do 80% decide quality of life tops quantity of consumption and possesions?  Then the solutions implement themselves, so to speak.
   
   
   
   http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

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10. 

    sindark Posted 3:11 am
    29 Dec 2008

    EquilibriumIn the long run, the only way to stabilize the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gasses is to reach a point of zero net emissions.
    For a while, techniques like biochar may allow us to offset our emissions but, in the end, it will be necessary to cut those emissions to zero, if we are to maintain a stable climate indefinitely.
    
    a sibilant intake of breath

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11. 

    arclein Posted 7:37 am
    29 Dec 2008

    biocharbiochar is also known as terra preta and has an astounding history in the Amazon.  google either and you will hit thousands of postings on the appropriate forums.
    Wood is likely an inappropriate feedstock but crop waste is not.
    so called negatives in the boreal forests, i have not seen and I am monitoring this.  likely a grasped straw by a nitpicker.
    the real discovery is that adding biochar allows a full rich soil to be manufactured in all apparent environments.  this bold claim is still not completely verified but progress is underway everywhere and we are still looking for exceptions (they surely will be found even if ridiculous)
    regards
    arclein

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12. 

    erich Posted 2:41 pm
    30 Dec 2008

    Biochar, Pollan& Obama, EU PermitsChanging World Technologies
    Ultimately we must leave the combustion age behind. Charcoal to the soil is a bridging first step as other energy conversion technologies bloom from Nano and bio reasearch. Thankfully we can do TP now.
    Oil interest must come to see the overwhelming value of their carbon as the feedstock for the manufacture ( via carbon nanotubes, fullerines, DNA programed nano self assembly, etc.) of virtually all things in the near future.
    This convergences of different technologies will end the Combustion age.
    Terra Preta starts as a soil nano technology with increased CEC, than a micro tech with our wee- beasties / fungus, and macro with bugs and worms.
    Biotic Carbon, the carbon transformed by life, should never be combusted, oxidized and destroyed. It deserves more respect, reverence even, and understanding to use it back to the soil where 2/3 of excess atmospheric carbon originally came from.
    We all know we are carbon-centered life, we seldom think about the complex web of recycled bio-carbon which is the true center of life. A cradle to cradle, mutually co-evolved biosphere reaching into every crack and crevice on Earth.
    It's hard for most to revere microbes and fungus, but from our toes to our gums (onward), their balanced ecology is our health. The greater earth and soils are just as dependent, at much longer time scales. Our farming for over 10,000 years has been responsible for 2/3rds of our excess greenhouse gases. This soil carbon, converted to carbon dioxide, Methane & Nitrous oxide began a slow stable warming that now accelerates with burning of fossil fuel.
    Wise Land management; Organic farming and afforestation can build back our soil carbon,
    
    Biochar allows the soil food web to build much more recalcitrant organic carbon, ( living soil biomass & Glomalins) in addition to the carbon in the biochar.
    The recent EU permits granted 3RAgroCarbon http://www.3ragrocarbon.com , after 4 years of testing show Biochar's massive increase in yields of more than 100%
    
    "Doses: 400 kg / ha - 1000 kg / ha at different horticultural cultivars
    
    Plant height Increase 141 % versus control
    
    Picking yield Increase 630 % versus control
    
    Picking fruit Increase 650 % versus control
    
    Total yield Increase 202 % versus control
    
    Total piece of fruit Increase 171 % versus control
    
    Fruit weight Increase 118 % versus control"
    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.
    
    arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/pa...
    As Dr. Lehmann at Cornell points out, "Closed-Loop Pyrolysis systems 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.
    Senator / Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar has done the most to nurse this biofuels system in his Biochar provisions in the 07 & 08 farm bill,
    
    http://www.biochar-internatio...
    POZNAN, Poland, December 10, 2008 - The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) announces that the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has submitted a proposal to include biochar as a mitigation and adaptation technology to be considered in the post-2012-Copenhagen agenda of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A copy of the proposal is posted on the IBI website at
    
    The International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
    Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
    In a recent National Public Radio interview, Michael Pollan talks about how he was approached by a Democratic party staffer about his New York Times article, The"Farmer & an open letter to the next president concerning U.S. agriculture/energy policy. The staffer wanted Pollan to summarize the article into a page or two to get it into the hands of Barack Obama. Pollan declined, saying that if he could have said everything that needed to be said in two pages, he wouldn't have written 8000 words.
    Michael Pollan is well briefed about Biochar technology, but did not include it in his "Farmer & Chief" article to President Obama, (Which he did read & cited in a speech) but I'm sure Biochar will be his 8001th word to him.
    Erich
    
    540 289 9750

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13. 

    amazingdrx Posted 2:58 pm
    30 Dec 2008

    CombustionThat is the problem with charcoal kiln technology used to make biochar.  It is basically partial combustion of the wood, most of the energy wasted and carbon sent into the atmosphere.  
    Pyrolisis, the separation of the bio-oil from the wood with heat, in the abscence of oxygen, does not burn the biomass.  The oil can be stored and used as fuel for grid backup.  That enables wind and solar.
    The pyrolisis heat energy can be cogenerated by a solid oxide fuel cell running on the pyrolisis oil or biogas, so that whenever grid backup is needed, waste wood is converted to biochar, and pyrolisis oil is extracted for future use.
    Joint biogas and pyrolisis oil plants feeding a farm based grid backup generator of this type could bolster a local renewable smart grid, and that could nearly eliminate reliance on fossil fuel and nuclear power, when enough local systems were connected in a regional grid.
    Biochar soil amendment soaked in organic fertilizer would be a valuable, carbon sequestering, carbon preventing product.  A great way to restore the soil to its natural carbon sink activity.
    Eliminating chemical fertilizer provides a huge GHG savings too.
    
    http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

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14. 

    Pangolin Posted 8:10 pm
    30 Dec 2008

    Combustion's stayingThe vast majority of the world's farmers can't afford closed loop pyrolisis chambers. They can make rocket stoves and charcoal kilns out of clays that will greatly improve the efficiency of their cooking and heating fires. That's just knowledge added to resources thay already have.
    With a little help they could also convert agricultural waste and dry biomass into biochar in steel drums that could be used to improve their topsoils. The long term improvement in topsoils of biochar will more than offset the temporary shift from bacterial consumption of wastes to combustion. Combustion in kilns could even decrease the amount of ag waste that converts to methane and particulate matter in normal burning and mulching operations. What isn't an option is to have soil carbon increase while maintaining the status quo.
    
    Put the Carbon Back

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