Biochar untested and unproven or political football
Press Release: 03/02/09
The global warming challenges we face have been linked to our addiction to digging
black stuff out of the ground and using it to fuel our growth and prosperity. Biochar
technology offers society the opportunity to pay back this historic greenhouse burden
by taking renewable resources, converting them into black stuff, or biochar,
which can be beneficially sequestered in the ground. The good news is that biochar
sequestration actually adds value by increasing soil productivity, so can contribute to
ongoing prosperity rather than coming at a huge cost to society.
The federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry - Tony Burke stated that
There are many different technologies that can be used to try to deliver [carbon
sequestration in soil] and biochar is one of them. Its untested, its unproven. He
expressed that the opposition partys enthusiastic support of the technology is a long
way in advance of where the scientists are at.
The fundamental premise of the stability of charcoal in the environment is well
established in many scientific disciplines. For example, archaeologists routinely use
carbon dating of charcoal created tens of thousand of years ago.
So what is the view of prominent scientists on biochars potential as a climate
solution? Professor James Hansen - Climatologist and head of the NASA Goddard
Institute for Space Studies has published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal that
Biochar [
] can be used to restore soil fertility while storing carbon for centuries to
millennia [
] [and] could provide a CO2 drawdown.
Veteran environmentalist and accomplished chemist, Professor James Lovelock, when
interviewed for New Scientist on solutions for our time concluded that There is one
way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal.
In the Ecopolis documentary made for Discovery Channel, Daniel Kammen Nobel
Prize-winning Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley
concluded that Finding places to store carbon - to sequester it - is a rare commodity
that pushes biochar into the lead and makes it a clear winner.
In Australia, Evelyn Krull, soil carbon expert at Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) says biochar technology is a research
priority for us because it can be an opportunity for Australia to help mitigate carbon
emissions and assist agriculture to combat decline in soil health. Environmental
scientist and Australian of the Year 2007, Professor Tim Flannery, has been a
champion of biochar technology for several years. Flannery has said I think this is
one of the most exciting and important new technologies out there, in terms of
stabilising our climate and that it does seem to look too good to be true but I've
looked at it from every angle and I fail to see the fault in the system.
On the ground, NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) has been conducting
biochar trials for Australian agricultural systems since 2006. This work has been
assisted by the supportive NSW State Government. Senior scientist Dr. Lukas van
Zwieten says We have scientifically demonstrated that biochar products can increase
soil carbon levels, offering an opportunity to restore the carbon levels of Australias
depleted soils. Our trials have also shown improvements in crop productivity and
soil health, which is obviously a win-win situation for farmers.
The challenge facing researchers in Australia is that the proposed exclusion of biochar
carbon sequestration from the governments Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
(CPRS) means there is no incentive for the industry investment required to establish
the demonstration biochar production facilities that are necessary to measure and
verify the actual greenhouse balance across the process and have enough biochar for
large-scale, scientifically verified studies.
The biochar process has several advantages in terms of greenhouse accounting. As a
controlled and engineered production process the monitoring and verification required
for greenhouse accounting is straight forward compared with other accounting
challenges such as growing trees. Professor Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University
published in Nature that Biochar is a lower-risk strategy than other sequestration
options, in which stored carbon can be released, say, by forest fires, by converting no-
tillage back to conventional tillage, or by leaks from geological carbon storage.
Lehmann has done extensive work on the Terra preta soils of South America that
provide a biochar sequestration case study set up by pre-Columbian Indians centuries
ago.
The technology required for the large-scale production of biochar is far from
unproven. The production of charcoal is in fact one of the oldest industrial processes.
Traditional charcoal making however does not usually include energy recovery and
therefore does not have a promising greenhouse balance. Biomass gasifiers, for the
production of renewable energy, have also been in commercial operation for decades
and can be used for biochar production. Their traditional focus on energy production
via a gaseous fuel (syngas) results in only a mineral ash remaining in the solid form,
with little stabilised carbon or char. The greenhouse challenge has brought the
attention of engineers to optimising the co-production of charcoal and bioenergy, in
effect incorporating these two concepts to provide a true climate change solution.
Proof of concept of the technology has been achieved right here in Australia, with
pioneers BEST Energies Australia and NSW DPI winning the 2007 United Nations
Association of Australia (UNAA) World Environment Day Prize for this
achievement. BEST Energies has a pilot plant in NSW which has successfully
produced biochar and carbon-negative green electricity from a range of waste
organic material. They have designs for commercial systems and could start
construction tomorrow given the required investment.
Inclusion of the technology as an option for greenhouse gas mitigation in the CPRS
will provide a clear message to the investors required to roll out this technology.
Inclusion in the scheme will also ensure that the technology is subject to the
accreditation and auditing regulations associated with it. This will ensure that any
offsets generated are verified and will allow industry the opportunity to implement the
lowest cost offset options with the greatest flow on benefits for Australian businesses.
Contact: Adriana Downie, BEST Energies Australia
adriana@bestenergies.com.au