Now to answer your question. The two systems are basically the same in principle: you remove CO2 from the atmosphere by sequestering the carbon from renewable biomass, after you’ve used it as an energy source.

The difference is in (1) the technology, (2) the CO2 offsetting cost, and (3) the environmental benefits that differ considerably for the two systems.

1. Bioenergy with Carbon Storage (BECS) – that is capturing and storing CO2 from biomass burned in IGCCs or other plants – is large scale, requires efficient capture technologies (lots of research money going into this) and needs a geosequestration infrastructure (CO2 transport and storage sites).

Now in theory, BECS is more interesting than CCS applied to fossil fuels, because you can decentralise all aspects, making it possible to sequester CO2 in smaller geosequestration sites than would be possible with fossil fuels.

On this particular advantage, see:
S. Haszeldine, “Deep geological CO2 storage: principles, and prospecting for bioenergy disposal sites” (5MB pdf), Abrupt Climate Change Strategy Group.

2. The biochar approach can be far smaller in scale, but is especially attracting increasing interest from soil scientists and biogeochemists because of the interaction of the char in soils, especially acidic, nutrient poor soils (oxisols, ferralsols, etc…). Around half the world’s potentially arable land is made up of such acidic soils.

Biochar amendments have shown to boost crop yields because the nanoporous structure of the char interacts in a very beneficial way with soil microorganisms and nutrients. It:

-improves cation exchange capacity
-improves microbioal activity
-improves water retention capacity
-increases Ph (important in acidic problem soils)
-reduces leaching of nutrients
-reduces N2O emissions (important emissions from agriculture)

That’s the key to biochar. Not only is it a stable and manageable carbon sink (biochar stays inert for hundreds, possibly thousands of years – in contrast to humus or organic matter in topsoil, which mineralises in a matter of years), it also improves the soil biochemistry.

So with this in mind you can solve several problems, for which there are carbon credits under the CDM:

1. you can reduce deforestation dramatically by transiting from slash-and-burn to slash-and-char (slash-and-burn results in the typical nutrient poor soils, which forces farmers to move on to new land every two to three years); as you know, deforestation is responsible for 20 to 25% of anthropogenic emissions. -> here you receive a carbon credit (additionality rule OK)

2. you can improve food security amongst some of the world’s poorest people considerably, because the acidic problem soils they cultivate become far more fertile, leading to impressive yield increases. Biochar trials with high inputs have shown increases of up to 800 percent in tropical acidic soils (trials in less problematic soils and in a highly developed country – Australia – using highly advanced inputs, can push yields that already are very high, up by 200 to 300 percent – see the NSW DPI trials). Normally mineral fertilizer applications get washed away because of the heavy tropical rains – this is a basic problem encountered in tropical agriculture; biochar keeps the nutrients locked up and active. -> here you receive a carbon credit because you reduce fertilizer needs (additionality rule OK)

3. you can provide access to modern bioenergy to some of the world’s most underserved, because biochar can be made efficiently via pyrolysis; pyrolysis processes can be maximised for syngas and char production, while eliminating the tar fraction. -> so here you get a carbon credit because you change primitive biomass use to modern bioenergy (rural electricity, efficiently generated) (additionality rule definitely OK)

So the main differences between the two approaches to carbon negative energy come down to a matter of scale, cost and socio-environmental benefits.

BECS can remove far more CO2 from the atmosphere via one single point (a large IGCC for example): you can remove around 1000 tons of CO2 per GWh. (Note: on an LCA basis coal gives +800tons; coal+CCS gives +100 tons or so; solar PV gives +100 tons; wind gives +30 tons; biomass gives +30 tons; nuclear +20 tons; hydro +10-20 tons; micro-hydro +10 tons; biomass+CCS gives -1000 tons, that is *minus*).

Whereas biochar can be implemented across the tropics with relatively simple means to serve smaller communities. Its potential:

“Thus, pyrolysis of 1 Gt of biomass C would provide energy equivalent to about 0.3 Gt of fossil C and could be used to offset that amount of fossil C, while sequestering 0.5 Gt as biochar. Of the 60.6 Gt/yr of biomass that is fixed in usable form, we estimate that perhaps 10% of it (6.1 Gt/yr) could become available in one form or another (crop and forestry residues, and animal waste) for pyrolysis. This level of pyrolysis would offset 1.8 Gt/yr of fossil C, and sequester 3.0 Gt/yr as biochar, enough to halt the increase and actually decrease the level of atmospheric C by 0.7 Gt/yr. Even at half this level (i.e., 5% of annually fixed biomass), pyrolysis would be sufficient to decrease the global C cycle imbalance by 2.4 Gt/yr and in combination with other sequestration options help to achieve the minimum goal of C neutrality. Clearly, the potential contribution of biochar technology is large, perhaps large enough to mitigate climate change alone.”

Amonette, J.; Lehmann, J.; Joseph, S., “Terrestrial Carbon Sequestration with Biochar: A Preliminary Assessment of its Global Potential”, American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, 12/2007

A good start for biochar is the Soil Fertility Management and Soil Biogeochemistry unit of professor Lehmann at Cornell University:

http://www.css.cornell.edu/faculty/lehmann/index.htm (Check both biochar and terra preta (under “featuring”)).

While a good starting point for BECS is the Abrupt Climate Change Strategy group: http://accstrategy.org/ (Check under draft papers and presentations).

Alternatively, the IEA’s Bioenergy Task Forces have good info on BECS as well.

Hope that answers your question.

Now are you telling us that the CMD and the UNFCCC are a joke? A pubescent game?

How can you humiliate your own sector and instruments so much?

http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/

I do have one question about it. Apparently you partially burn biomass until you get to carbon and then bury the carbon. What if instead of doing what you are doing, you fully burned this biomass in a power plant, but instead not fully burned coal in a power plant and then burned the coal that was left over from that, what’s the difference? Is a ton of unburned biomass carbon different from a ton of not fully burned carbon from coal? (except I realize the not fully burned coal has more chemicals in it, sulfur, etc) By not fully burning the biomass, you leave energy that has to be made up somewhere else, or am I missing something?

I’m trying to understand the process, so come down on me a little easier, please.

Sorry, sir, I won’t buy the book. I’m tired of your clique’s attempts to instill fear in people. It’s green fascism. It doesn’t work on me. And luckily, more and more people are beginning to see through it.

It’s a bit easy to call new concepts SimCity – a typical sign of a state of denial or ignorance, or both.

Biochar is being recognised by more and more researchers as a very viable and cost-effective technique to reverse climate change. The concept is new, which is why you should delve into the research a bit to understand its potential.

Trials by Australia’s New South Wales Department of Primary Industries’ (DPI) — that is not SimCity — shows biochar boosts crop yields and results in carbon-negative energy.

Research confirms biochar in soils boosts crop yields.

Biochar was presented at the UNFCCC in Bali, by Dr Christoph Steiner, who has done extensive trials in Brazil. The UNCCD gave it very good response and called it “revolutionary”. The UNFCCC / UNCCD is not SimCity.

Biochar and charcoal carbon capture at the United Nations Climate Change Conference – Bali, 3 – 14 December 2007.

Biochar is now seen as more viable than REDD/avoided deforestation/compensated reduction.

The World Food Program and the FAO are looking at it as well. I wouldn’t consider both institutes as spewing Virtual nonsense.

Add: there’s a bill in the U.S. calling for $120 million into biochar research.
S.1884 – The Salazar Harvesting Energy Act of 2007 [*.pdf], introduced July 26, 2007.

The International Biochar Inititative was recently launched, comprising credible soil and climate scientists from across the world.

In short, things are moving. So I find your blunt dismissal of a new idea a bit easy and infantile. Perhaps it’s because you don’t really grasp what it’s about.

On coupling bioenergy power plants to carbon capture and storage (CCS), that’s an older concept, sanctioned by the IEA and the IPCC.

Several concrete projects are already in the pipeline:

-the NREL/USAF’s coal-biomass-to-liquids+CCS project
-ADM’s ethanol+CCS cogen plant
-Aker’s Bio-Capture technology being implemented in a CCS plant
-China is implementing biomass power plants coupled to CCS (a collaboration between a group of Australian and Chinese universities.

All our reporting on the matter is based on concrete projects and research results.

So if you call this SimCity stuff, I think most readers will understand that either you haven’t grasped the basics of why researchers are working on these concepts. Or there is another, more likely reason: you would be out of business when these technologies were to be implemented.

The real SimCity is people like you and Lester Brown: you sell doom and gloom books and push fear mongering messages but when concrete solutions are being developed, you call them nonsense. They’re obviously a threat to your business. Quite frankly, that’s your problem.

Best,
Jonas Van Den Berg

Maybe you put a higher societal value on ’suggestions’, with regard to diminishing CO2 atmospheric concentrations, than is justified.

I urge others to read that piece and offer their interpretation.

John L. McCormick