By Ryan Hottle
Biochar may be the single greatest solution humanity has to mitigate and adapt to the threat of global climate change. Through the process of creating biochar (called pyrolysis) it is possible
to simultaneously produce clean energy, vastly improve soils, and capture significant quantities of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
The source of the material used for making biochar can be a wide variety of feedstocks including waste agricultural products (e.g. nut shells and rice hulls), urban lawn waste (e.g. leaves and tree trimmings), poultry manure, fast growing trees (e.g. poplars and willows), sewage sludge, saw dust, and grass-based biomass (e.g. switchgrass.)
Biochar is also widely recognized as providing a means of reducing deforestation by offering alternatives to slash-and-burn agriculture. Many proponents of biochar hope it will increase economic well-being and sustainability of local indigenous communities. The appropriate use of the technology could benefit third-world countries as a highly efficient method of cooking and using local biomass resources.
An example of how pyrolysis applications could be used to benefit third-world communities using appropriate scale for home cooking and heating. Image of Robert Flanagan's biochar cookstove.
Community-scale biochar power generation facilities could work in tandem with solar and wind based renewable energy systems to produce energy while the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. Using Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems for biochar production may be among the most sustainable methods by which we can heat and power our homes in the future.
Clearly the potential benefits of biochar are significant.
A somewhat strange attack-piece circulated by a few small organizations, however, would make you think otherwise. An article entitled “International Biochar Conference Uses False Claims to Promote Dangerous Technology in the name of Climate Change Mitigation,” has recently begun circulating the internet in response to the International Biochar Initiative’s second annual meeting in Newcastle, United Kingdom.
In the article they claim that Biochar is a “scheme for profiteering off of the crisis of climate change,” and that “vast areas of land would have to be turned over to monoculture plantations to produce enough biomass.” They claim that biochar production “will accelerate global warming,” and that “the IBI board members are well aware that science does not back their claims.”
Unfortunately, this belligerent attack on the International Biochar Initiative and on biochar, in general, is unfortunate, unhelpful, and extremely dishonest.
Myth 1: Biochar requires that we plant monoculture plantations
As described at the beginning of this article, biochar can be derived from a large variety of feedstocks and need not require monoculture plantations. Indeed, biochar’s powerful soil improvement characteristics may be a critical component to reforestation efforts as well as a significant element of sustainable agricultural practices, particularly in the tropics.
Myth 2: Biochar will accelerate global climate change
Dr. James Hansen, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, has recently pointed to biochar (and the work of Dr. Johannes Lehmann) as being potentially the most critical component to carbon sequestration and climate mitigation in his most recent paper “Where Should Humanity Aim?”
Myth 3: There is no scientific basis for biochar
A significant amount of research has been conducted on biochar by universities, institutions, and private companies across the world and on practically every continent. More research remains to be done, as biochar is a novel suggestion in light of the unprecedented threats of global climate change and energy scarcity. The data suggest a clear link between biochar and improved soil fertility, clean energy production, and significant carbon sequestration.
I think it unfortunate that this campaign has been launched by a group of “environmental organizations.” While their concerns over continued deforestation and indigenous communities are legitimate, their unsubstantiated hack job is not.
Many of the people working behind the scenes to promote biochar as a sustainable solution to climate change are concerned about the very same issues. I invite those who are responsible for writing and circulating the article to open a dialog with the biochar community instead of releasing dubious press releases. A good place to start would be on the Biochar Listserve available at: http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org.
Thanks for this concise rebuttal, I hope these groups come to understand they are biting their noses off in spite of their face.
Erich
Hmm…. wild claims they have made indeed, and your response seems excellently science and reality based in comparision.
I think it is proper they “kick” those factions who boost ethanol plant plantations, but carefully do not mention a word about methane from plant matter…. and go grabbing corporate patents in globally vital issue of Terra Preta type mixtures.
Here is a basic flow of biochar concept as much as I have comprehended it’s global potentials… and are feasibly testable in reality by all sorts of communties and individuals, whether rich or poor:
Currently spoiled over nutrified Fresh Waters —> Excess growth—> Periodically Collect portion of excess growth—> Solar dry portion of that, turn to biochar, burn pyrolysis gasses, use energy, feed CO2 to plants… —> Turn other portion to biogas and nutrient sludge in anaerobic biodigestor —> Burn Biogas for energy and feed CO2 to plants —> Ground charcoal finely—> Mix Charcoal powder to biodigestor provided nutrient sludge —> take Terra Preta Mixture to be spread on selected depleted sandy land —-> Waters get cleaned, methane emissions from rotting gets cut, plants get CO2 boost, depleted and desertified lands made fertile….
…and… all low tech. doable from locally available materials (clay biodigestors with waterlocks, charcoal kilns that burn pyrolysis gasses, leading the heated CO2 to plants… nets and pitchforks to collect water hyacinths…). No material imports needed to poor areas, just the instructions to be applied with any remaining local ecosystem knowledges (in some cases a lot… in some cases wiped out by outsider pillage, it seems).
Interested people (I mean anyone of us at all) can research for Do It Yourself instructions of the above work stages in the Net… or they can look for some in this list: http://koti.mbnet.fi/maxt/ecolinks/Edited%20ecolinks/bookmarks.html
Only thing that seems to miss from that list, seems to be the simplest charcoal making while burning and utilizing the pyrolysis gasses… so here is a link to that too: http://www.holon.se/folke/carbon/simplechar/simplechar.shtml (and remember that carbon monoxide is deadly, only to be applied outdoors and carefully). When one tries any of these techniques in reality… sees how they work… it does not matter if there is media attacks or wild claims made by apparent specialists… what works in reality, works in reality, and that is that. No matter what claims some figure in TV or any media says. I mean these activities as an option for people who feel they are dependent now on expert claims and can not make out who is more plausible.
Now if there was a way to remove salt from seaweed surfaces…. perhaps by soaking them few days on loose net, few hundered meters within freshwater area of sea pouring river delta….
MaxT
“Science. Not shiny gizmoes, fancy suits, or exclusive materials. Real things… work in reality.”
Biochar requires that we plant monoculture plantations
Well in Australia this is true of planting trees.
The government gives massive tax breaks to plantation companies who take over thousands of hectares of prime land.
Plantaion Companies are not bound by the same environmental protection laws that farmers have to abide by.
Farmers are offered huge prices for their land and the communities and the County Town social structure collapse (fewer people means fewer police, doctors teachers, etc)
The timber is milled on site, with moveable mills, chopped into chips and shipped direct to Japan or SE Asia.
“Compared with other land uses, more people overall thought that increased blue gum plantations led to population loss, fewer jobs, lower levels of community involvement, more road damage and wildfire risk,” she says.
http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/confirmed-people-dont-like-blue-gum-plantations/1256428.aspx
A recent article ( Sept 4 “Out with the old Trees”) commented:
“Ironically, well-meaning city people who support government efforts to encourage land to be planted to trees would probably die of shock to discover such incredibly old trees lying on the ground waiting to be burnt,”
http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/state/agribusiness-and-general/general/out-with-the-old-forests/1262176.aspx
In another article from the same paper the comment was made
“The continual loss of prime agricultural land due to MIS’s, carbon sinks and now state government grown plantations can only lead to an increase in the price of food.”
http://theland.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/agribusiness-and-general/general/mary-valley-should-be-food-bowl-boswell/1254602.aspx
I will leave others to address and comment on your other points but I agree with you.
This is a most ill-informed silly article that makes assumptions that are just not true.
Here in the Cambrian Mountains of Wales, the upland sheep farm I run includes two areas of Oak Coppice plus three of Sallow Coppice plus six of mixed coppice, totalling 29, 3 & 12 acres respectively.
Coppice, (as some may want explained) is the ancient practice of harvesting deciduous trees at 5 to perhaps 30 years of growth, and allowing them to regrow from the stump, up to 20% faster than normal. Some species are better than others at thriving as coppices.
The monoculture oak coppices here are undoubtedly the oldest, being successors to the oak woodlands that developed here as the last ice age withdrew. While their yield is not high, it is excellent given the 1,000 to 1,350 ft altitude, (at 52 N) and the ancient boulder scree on which they’ve built enough soil to carry a bed of pure bilberry bushes. We graze St Idloes sheep (and .someday Tamworth pigs) there for limited periods each year.
The Sallow Coppices are just as high and are somewhat better yielding in volume, but not in either the energy or materials potential of the wood harvest. They require (and actively develop) boggy ground, which carries a deep monoculture carpet of wholly inedible Sphagnum Moss. (V. good for nappies, aka daipers).
The mixed coppices grow at less than 1,100 ft, and are the most productive in energy and materials terms, but they do require at least a poor soil in amongst boulders to thrive. They are of a silviculture known as “Coppice and Standards” (the latter being high canopy species such as Oak, Ash, Birch, Alder etc of which some are allowed to grow to maturity), along with understory species such as Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Hazel, Crabapple etc. The mixed coppices hold the highest biodiversity of any ecosystem here, which is driven both by better soil and by the diverse tree species as well as the varying amount of sunlight reaching the woodland floor as the coppices are felled and regrown over a 15-yr cycle (i.e. about one fifteenth are felled each year).
I hope the above notes may help to dispel the common assumption that a monoculture is necessarily a bad – in reality it can, evidently, offer sustainable production of a relatively high order where a polyculture would not do as well.
My second hope is that it may now be plain that charcoal production, for which coppice is the normal and traditional UK feedstock resource, offers a major new justification for reforestation of low-grade land worldwide.
Which, in turn, will help to reduce the diversion of farm “wastes” into biochar production, rather than being returned to the soil along with their critical nutrient content.
Regards,
Lewis
One of the amazing things about biochar is what it can do for poor soils in a garden. Here in Northern California the soils are predominately clay and they get warm enough to burn off as much compost as you can feed them in a few years. The simple addition of rough charcoal to a friends garden has greatly opened up the clay soil and facilitated deep watering, weeding and vegetable growth.
The soil is friable enough where the charcoal has been tilled in that a foot of root off an oak seedling can be pulled up with the shoot. A mere three feet away the same size oak seedling will hold fast in the ground and a grown man couldn’t pull it out.
Sift the charcoal out of your ash, cover the ground to 1 cm and till in and the results will astonish you. Otherwise you can use bagged charcoal if you don’t use the briquets. Soaking the charcoal and freezing it solid, then thawing seems to help the crushing process.