Issues Facing Biochar Technology

Biochar: is it really the next big thing in environmental conservation? My guess is as good as yours. Research has given me a chance to explore what issues biochar technology will face. Tackling these issues, I hope, will help us figure out just how important biochar's role is going to be in the future of our warming earth.

1. Proving the skeptics wrong

As mentioned in the article "Supporters and Skeptics of Biochar Technology", it seems that one major drawback of biochar is that if it is not distributed in the right way and on the right location, it will be rendered useless when it comes to absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Ecologist David Wardle summed it up in his team's 10-year experiment in Sweden. In this experiment, the microbes that fed on biochar facilitated the decay and thus allowed CO2 to escape into the atmosphere at a faster rate than nature intended.

The question is, if biochar did nothing to help the soil or the atmosphere, how did the ancient Amazons succeed so well in utilizing biochar to enrich their forests and farmlands?

2. A better way to fuel biochar production?

Environmental companies such as Carbonscape is "helping sequester CO2 from the atmosphere by using microwaves to turn decaying organic matter into a more stable carbon sink: charcoal." Yet it is using a non-renewable source such as electricity to create all that biochar. If our goal is to stop dumping more greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, then using electricity to fuel large scale production of biochar seems to nullify most of what's involved in this earth saving endeavor. There must be a better way to fuel pyrolysis without resorting to a non-renewable source.

3. Green or Greenback?

Desmond Radlein of Dynamotive Energy systems back in 2007 figured "one would need about 7,000 plants each processing 500 tons of biomass per day, which is a large number, but it's not outside the bounds of possibility." Such facilities would produce four parts bio-oil to one part carbon sequestered, so it would rake in money as well as carbon. "

In the creation of promising ways to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere, doesn't it make you wonder if the real motive is green or greenback?

4. Can bio-oil save us from foreign oil dependency?

Speaking of bio-oil, supporters of biochar technology declare that "increasing the production of bio-oil could decrease a country's dependence on foreign oil."

Just how much bio-oil will be produced to make a country fully independent of foreign oil? The US Energy Information Administration calculates that the US alone consumes up to 19,498 barrels of oil per day. For bio-oil to be able to match such an enormous amount of foreign oil being utilized by our country, it will be a gigantic and ambitious dream yet to be fulfilled.

5. Going back to the farms

"The new markets for agricultural crops, which would in effect become sources of fuel, could boost rural economies worldwide, just as the demand for ethanol has bolstered the price of corn."

Note though that ethanol has not succeeded in replacing the value of the oil we currently use. If biochar is going to be "the next big thing" in energy source from farms, does this mean a more agricultural society should be pursued in the future?

6. Production equipment, sources, and logistics

The other big issue facing biochar supporters today is not only where to obtain the (do-it-yourself) production equipment, but the sources and the means of transportation for the bulk of organic matter to be burned. It is still a growing method, and a growing business. Many scientists say as soon as dying trees were used to produce biochar, the biochar byproduct itself can be used as fertilizer for new trees to be planted where they have been removed. As of today also, there are actually several companies that are developing industrial equipment specifically used for biochar production. One of these is Biochar Engineering (BEC).

7. Not all plant matter are equal

One scientist notes, "No one is sure what types of biomass should be used as raw material, or exactly what production methods work best, so calculating the costs is really an exercise in speculation."

Biochar is so new that there is so much research going on to determine if all kinds of wood chips or plant matter can be used, or if only certain types of "sewage" can be used. Farmers and environmental companies who support biochar must keep their eyes and ears open for future developments.

8. How to replicate the terra preta?

Many scientists believe that even though we have figured out how charcoal can help the environment and improve soil fertility, we could not create the same richness of the Amazon soil elsewhere. The factors may include the interaction of living beings in the ancient Amazon rainforest itself, or the sheer age of the forest. Bruno Glaser, a soil scientist at Bayreuth University in Germany said "You would need 50 or 100 years to get a similar combination between the stable charcoal and the ingredients."

9. When the soil is overused...

Chris Turney of Carbonscape in New Zealand says that if biochar operations are adopted across the globe, the technique could take out billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year. Fast-growing trees such as pine could be "farmed" to act specifically as carbon traps - microwaved, buried and replaced with a fresh crop to do the same thing again [The Guardian]. He notes that traditional methods of producing charcoal convert only 20 to 30 percent of the wood's mass into charcoal, while Carbonscape's process can lock in about 50 percent.

The question is, how far would the soils go to endure this cycle of growing pine trees, burning them, and burying them back to the ground, to be used as fertilizer for new farm trees? Is there a limit to the soil's natural fertility until the point that it is no longer able to yield any crop, because it has been "overfed" and choked with charcoal throughout the years?

There is so much to learn about biochar technology. It is very promising, in fact, many scientists believe it is our "last hope" from escaping global warming. Yet, we still have a lot of things to understand about the concept, and, like the evolving civilization that we are, it seems our only way is to learn by trial and error.