Food and Energy Security

The 2008 Farm Bill (HR 2419, the Food and Energy Security Act -2008) was passed by the U.S. Congress and establishes the first federal-level policy in support of biochar production and utilization programs in the world, and is one of a handful of new, high-priority research and extension areas...

The following has been adapted from the Submission by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification 4th Session of the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action under the Convention... (Poznań, Poland, is an important centre of trade, industry, and education. It was the host city for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2008, a key stage in the creation of a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. Poznan is a candidate city for European Capital of Culture in 2016.)-December 2008

“An enriched dark soil found throughout the lowland portion of the Amazon Basin and termed Terra Preta, is one example how soil management can increase the productivity of soils for centuries." (Woods 1995).

These soils contain high concentrations of charcoal (Glaser et al. 2001); and significantly more plant available nutrients than in the surrounding soils (Lima et al. 2002). The existence of Terra Preta proves that infertile soils can be transformed into permanently fertile soils in spite of rates of weathering 100 times greater than those found in the mid-latitudes.

Systems (pyrolysis, -incomplete combustion,) converting biomass into energy (hydrogen-rich gas and bio-oil) and producing biochar as a by-product offer an opportunity to combine renewable energy production, carbon sequestration and soil restoration. Biochar can be produced by incomplete combustion from any biomass, and it is a by-product of the pyrolysis technology used for biofuel and bioenergy production. If the demand for renewable fuels by the year 2100 was met through pyrolysis, biochar sequestration could exceed current emissions from fossil fuels (Lehmann et al. 2006).

Biochar and Soil Fertility

The inert, and therefore stable,) durable nature of charcoal makes biochar rather exceptional. Recent studies showed that soil biochar amendments are indeed capable of increasing soil fertility by improving chemical, biological, and physical properties. Biochar significantly increase plant growth and nutrition (Lehmann et al. 2003, Steiner et al. 2007). Lehmann et al. (2003) and Steiner et al. (2008) found improved efficiency of nitrogen fertilizers on biochar containing fields.

The effects on soil biology seem to be essential as biochar has the potential to alter the microbial biomass (Steiner et al. 2004) and composition (Birk 2005) and the microbes are able to change the biochar’s properties (Glaser et al. 2001). The majority of experiments conducted show that biochar soil amendments result in enhanced colonization rates my mycorrhizal fungi (Warnock et al. 2007). Rondon et al. (2007) found increased biological nitrogen fixation by common beans through biochar additions. Lehmann and Rondon (2006) reviewed 24 studies with soil biochar additions and found improved productivity in all of them ranging from 20 to 220% at application rates of 0.4 to 8 tons carbon per square hectare (2.5 square acres)

Advantages of Biochar Carbon Sequestration

No competition between SOC(Soil Organic Carbon) restoration, bio-fuels and food.

Numerous researchers warn of deleterious effects on soil fertility if crop residues are removed for bio-energy production (Sauerbeck 2001, Lal 2004). Pyrolysis with biochar carbon sequestration provides a tool to combine sustainable SOC management (carbon sequestration), and renewable energy production. While producing renewable energy from biomass, SOC sequestration, agricultural productivity, and environmental quality can be sustained and improved if the biomass is transferred to an inactive carbon pool and redistributed to agricultural fields. The uses of crop residues as potential energy source or to sequester carbon and improve soil quality can be complementary, not competing uses.

Pyrolysis or gasification with biochar carbon sequestration

Bioenergy with biochar carbon storage facilitates the generation of carbon-negative energy. Biochar producing gasifiers can have a broad range in size and in technological complexity. Biochar can be produced as a byproduct from cooking (biochar producing kitchen stoves). Decentralized small scale projects are feasible and large capital investments are not necessary. As biochar is a byproduct of gasification, no carbon capture technology is necessary. There is no risk of harmful CO2 leakage from biochar.

Fast SOC buildup beyond the maximum sequestration capacity

From biomass to humus a considerable fraction of carbon is lost by respiratory processes, and also from humus to resistant soil carbon. Only 2-20% of the carbon added as above ground residues and root biomass enters the SOC pool by humification. The rest is converted to CO2 due to oxidation, and furthermore the SOC pool is not inert to oxidation (Lal 2004). Soils can only sequester additional carbon until the maximum soil carbon capacity, or soil carbon saturation, is achieved, which requires a steady input of biomass and careful management practices. In contrast, about 50% of the carbon can be captured if biomass is converted to biochar (Lehmann et al. 2006).

"The existence of Terra Preta proves that SOC enrichment beyond the maximum capacity is possible if done with a recalcitrant form of carbon such as biochar. These soils still contain large amounts of biochar derived SOC in a climate favorable for decomposition, hundreds and thousands of years after they were abandoned."

Reduced Deforestation

Only re-growing plant biomass can establish a carbon sink. The carbon trade could provide an incentive to cease further deforestation; instead reforestation and recuperation of degraded land for fuel and food crops would gain magnitude.

As tropical forests account for between 20 and 25% of the world terrestrial carbon reservoir (Bernoux et al. 2001), this would reduce emissions from tropical forest conversion which is estimated to contribute globally as much as 25 % of net CO2 emissions and up to 10 % of N2O emissions to the atmosphere (Palm et al. 2004).

Easy accountability and reduced risk

Current CDM (Clean Development Mechanism,) the Clean Development Mechanism is an arrangement under the Kyoto Protocol allowing industrialized countries with a greenhouse gas reduction commitment (called Annex 1 countries) to invest in projects that reduce emissions in developing countries as an alternative to more expensive emission processes...) projects dealing with charcoal aim either at reduction of methane emissions during charcoal
production or substitution of fossil fuels by burning charcoal. In both cases the charcoal does not reduce GHG (GreenHouse Gases) in the atmosphere.

Biochar as a soil amendment would provide a large permanent carbon sink. Potential drawbacks such as difficulty in estimating greenhouse gas removals and emissions resulting from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF), or destruction of sinks through forest fire or disease do not apply to biochar soil amendments. Furthermore, the biochar carbon sink is easily quantifiable. Biochar production transforms carbon from the active (crop residues or trees) to the inactive carbon pool. Biochar is a formally authorized soil amendment in Japan and is discussed to be part of Australia’s emissions trading scheme. New Zealand invested in research development and commercialization of biofuel and biochar. The 2008 Farm Bill (H.R. 2419, the Food and Energy Security Act of 2008) was passed by the U. S. Congress and establishes the first federal-level policy in support of biochar production and utilization programs in the world, and is one of a handful of new, high-priority research and extension areas.

The avoided emissions of greenhouse gases are between 2 and 5 times greater when biochar is applied to agricultural land than used solely for fossil energy offsets. The potential revenues from carbon trading alone can justify optimizing pyrolysis to produce biochar for application to land (Gaunt and Lehmann 2008).”

(submitted to United Nations Climate Change Conference in December 2008)