Biochar Carbon Negative
Enviromentally Friendly
Agriculture smart dirt
Greenhouse Gases:
Sustainable technical potential:
The pyrolysis process of the biomass and its storage in soils have been suggested as a means of abating climate change by sequestering carbon, while simultaneously providing energy and increasing crop yields. Substantial uncertainties exist, however, regarding the impact, capacity and sustainability of biochar at the global level. In this paper we estimate the maximum sustainable technical potential of biochar to mitigate climate change. Annual net emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide could be reduced by a maximum of 1.8 Pg per year (12% of current anthropological CO2-Ce emissions; Pg=1 Gt), and total net emissions over the course of a century by 130 Pg CO2-Ce, without endangering food security, habitat or soil conservation. Biochar has a larger climate-change mitigation potential than combustion of the same sustainable procured biomass for bio-energy, except when fertile soils are amended while coal is the fuel being offset.
The effects of carbon dioxide:
The (CO2) emissions have risen by more than 3% annually putting the Earth's ecosystems on a trajectory towards rapid climate change that is both dangerous and irreversible. To change this trajectory, a timely and ambitious programmed of mitigation measures is needed. Several studies have shown that, to stabilize global mean surface temperature, cumulative anthropological greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions must be kept below a maximum upper limit, thus indicating that future net anthropological emissions must approach zero. If humanity oversteps this threshold of maximum safe cumulative emissions a limit that may already have been exceeded, no amount of emissions reduction will return the climate to within safe bounds. Mitigation strategies that draw down excess CO2 from the atmosphere would then assume an importance greater than an equivalent reduction in emissions.
Producing biochar:
Production of biochar, in combination with its storage in soils, has been suggested as one possible means of reducing the atmospheric CO2 concentration, and see a history of the concept and etymology of the term. Biochar's climate-mitigation potential stems primarily from its highly recalcitrant nature which slows the rate at which photosynthetically fixed carbon is returned to the atmosphere. In addition, biochar yields several potential co-benefits. It is a source of renewable bioenergy; it can improve agricultural productivity, particularly in low-fertility and degraded soils where it can be especially useful to the world's poorest farmers; it reduces the losses of nutrients and agricultural chemicals in run-off; it can improve the water-holding capacity of soils;
Sustainable nutrient capacities:
Biochar can be produced at scales ranging from large industrial facilities down to the individual farms. and even at the domestic city home making it applicable to a variety of socioeconomic situations. Various pyrolysis technologies are commercially available that yield different proportions of biochar and bioenergy products, such as bio-oil and syngas. The gaseous bioenergy products are typically used to generate electricity. The bio-oil may be used directly for low-grade heating applications and, potentially, as a diesel substitute after suitable treatment. Pyrolysis processes are classified into two major types, fast and slow, which refer to the speed at which the biomass is altered. Fast pyrolysis, with biomass residence times of a few seconds at most, generates more bio-oil and less biochar than slow pyrolysis, for which biomass residence times can range from hours to days.
Sustainable boichar concept:
The sustainable-biochar concept is summarized CO2 that is removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. Sustainably procured crop residues, manures, biomass crops, timber and forestry residues, and green waste are pyrolysed by modern technology to yield bio-oil, syngas, process heat and biochar. As a result of pyrolysis, immediate decay of these biomass inputs is avoided. The outputs of the pyrolysis process serve to provide energy, avoid emissions of GHGs such as methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), and amend agricultural soils and pastures. The bioenergy is used to offset fossil-fuel emissions.
Biochar's nutrient holding capacities:
In addition to the GHG emissions avoided by preventing decay of biomass inputs, soil emissions of GHGs are also decreased by biochar amendment to soils. The biochar stores carbon in a recalcitrant form that can increase soil water- and nutrient-holding capacities, which typically result in increased plant growth. This enhanced productivity is a positive feedback that further enhances the amount of CO2 removed from the atmosphere. Slow decay of biochar in soils, together with tillage and transport activities, also returns a small amount of CO2 to the atmosphere.
Sustainable global Implementation:
Biochar production will ultimately be limited by the rate at which biomass can be extracted and pyrolysed without causing harm to the biosphere or to human welfare. Globally, human activity is responsible for the appropriation of 16 Pg C per year from the biosphere, which corresponds to 24% of potential terrestrial net primary productivity (NPP). Higher rates of appropriation will increase pressure on global ecosystems, exacerbating a situation that is already unsustainable.
Climate mitigation change:
The climate-change mitigation potential of biochar when implemented in a sustainable manner. This limit, which we term the maximum sustainable technical potential (MSTP), represents what can be achieved when the portion of the global biomass resource that can be harvested sustainable that is, without endangering food security, habitat or soil conservation is converted to biochar by modern high-yield, low-emission, pyrolysis methods. The fraction of the MSTP that is actually realized will depend on a number of socioeconomic factors, including the extent of government incentives and the relative emphasis placed on energy production relative to climate-change mitigation. Aside from assuming a maximum rate of capital investment that is consistent with that estimated to be required for climate-change mitigation.
Implementation of biochar:
The sustainable global implementation of biochar can potentially offset a maximum of 12% of current anthropogenic CO2-C equivalent (CO2-Ce) emissions (that is, 1.8 Pg CO2-Ce per year of the 15.4 Pg CO2-Ce emitted annually), and that over the course of a century, the total net offset from biochar would be 130 Pg CO2-Ce.
Bio-energy instead of biochar:
This production can offset a maximum of 10% of the current anthropogenic CO2-Ce emissions. The relative climate-mitigation potentials of biochar and bio-energy depend on the fertility of the soil amended and the C intensity of the fuel being offset, as well as the type of biomass. Locations at which the soil fertility is high and coal is the fuel being offset are best suited for bioenergy production.
Sustainable biomass-feedstock availability
To ensure that our estimates represent a sustainable approach, we use a stringent set of criteria to assess potential feedstock availability for biochar production. Of primary importance is the conversion of land to generate feedstock. In addition to its negative effects on ecosystem conservation, land clearance to provide feedstock may also release carbon stored in soils and biomass, leading to unacceptably high carbon-payback times before any net reduction in atmospheric CO2 is achieved, for example, we find that a land-use change carbon debt greater than Mg C ha−1 (an amount that would be exceeded by conversion of temperate grassland to annual crops will result in a carbon-payback time that is greater than 10 years. The clearing of rainforests to provide land for biomass-crop production leads to carbon payback times in excess of 50 years. Where rainforest on peatland is converted to biomass-crop production, carbon-payback times may be in the order of 325 years. We therefore assume that no land clearance will be used to provide biomass feedstock, nor do we include conversion of agricultural land from food to biomass-crop production as a sustainable source of feedstock, both because of the negative consequences for food security and because it may indirectly induce land clearance elsewhere. Some dedicated biomass-crop production on abandoned, degraded agricultural soil has been included in this study as this will not adversely affect food security and can improve biodiversity.
Sustainable or not?
Biochar production methods arise because emissions of CH4, N2O, soot or volatile organic compounds combined with low biochar yields (for example, from traditional charcoal kilns or smouldering slash piles) may negate some or all of the carbon-sequestration benefits, cause excessive carbon-payback times or be detrimental to health. Therefore, we do not consider any biochar production systems that rely on such technologies, and restrict our analysis to systems in which modern, high-yield, low-emission pyrolysis technology can feasibly be used to produce high-quality biochar.
Within these constraints, we derived a biomass-availability scenario for our estimate of MSTP, as well as two additional scenarios, Alpha and Beta, which represent lower demands on global biomass.
Sustainable land management:
The attainment of the MSTP would require substantial alteration to global biomass management, but would not endanger food security, habitat or soil conservation. The first scenario restricts biomass availability to residues and wastes available using current technology and practices, together with a moderate amount of agroforestry and biomass cropping. All three scenarios represent fairly ambitious projects, and require progressively greater levels of political intervention to promote greater adoption of sustainable land-use practices and increase the quantity of uncontaminated organic wastes available for pyrolysis.
Energy contents:
The composition and energy contents of different types of biomass and the biochar derived from each and at the rate of adoption of the biochar technology. How this biomass resource base changes over the course of 100 years will depend on the potential effects of changing climate, atmospheric CO2, sea level.
Biomass factors:
land use, agricultural practices, technology, population, diet and economic development are Some of the factors that may increase biomass availability and some may decrease it.
Sustainable mitigation benefit:
The mitigation impact of the renewable energy obtained from both biochar production and biomass combustion depends on the carbon intensity that is, the mass of carbon emitted per unit of total energy produced from the offset of energy sources. Because the principal contribution of biomass combustion to avoided GHG emissions is the replacement of fossil fuels, the bio-energy approach shows a considerably higher sensitivity to carbon intensity than does biochar.
Cumulative emissions:
The carbon intensity of offset energy varies from near-zero for renewable and nuclear energy to 26 kg C GJ−1 for coal combustion. the mean cumulative avoided emissions from biochar and biomass combustion are equal in our scenarios when the carbon intensity of offset energy is 26–24 kg C GJ−1. In the MSTP scenario, this corresponds to an energy mix to which coal combustion contributes about 80%, whereas in the Alpha scenario, the mean mitigation benefit of biochar remains higher than that of bio-energy, even when 100% coal is offset. The cumulative avoided emissions from both strategies decrease as the carbon intensity of the offset energy mix decreases, but the rate of decrease for biomass combustion is 2.5–2.7 times greater than that for biochar. As expected, the cumulative avoided emissions for biomass combustion are essentially zero when the carbon intensity of the energy mix is also zero.
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