Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme
Jerome Mathews, Australian Biochars www.Biochars.com September 28, 2008
Submission by Australian Biochars Pty Ltd
At the Government seminar to introduce the Government’s Green Paper on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) held in Brisbane on the 18th July, 2008 Australian Biochars was invited to present a submission as to whether, in its opinion, it would be a viable option to include the use of biochar in some way in the CPRS.
For the reasons set out below, it is submitted that such a use would be both viable and effective because:
• Biochar sequesters and stores greenhouse gasses for far longer than forests are able so to do;
• Biochar does not require tending, watering or fertilising, unlike forests;
• Biochar is not subject to the vagaries of disease, fire or weather, unlike forests;
• Biochar increases crop yields;
• Biochar use makes for easy accounting;
• Biochar use is open to participation from multinational corporationsdown to individual users;
• Biochar has high water retention properties and is beneficial in drought conditions.
The CPRS Green Paper makes reference to the inclusion of forestry in, inter alia, thefollowing terms:‐
“Reforestation (as defined under the first commitment period of the Kyoto protocol)could be covered by the scheme. Forest landholders would receive permits for netsequestration that is counted towards Australia’s international commitments andwould be required to surrender permits for net emissions from the forest, shouldemissions exceed sequestration.
“Reforestation would differ from other covered activities because it provides a netcarbon sink and carbon dioxide emissions (from harvesting or fire) typically matchprior carbon sequestration in the forest. Therefore, whereas other covered entitieswould be required to surrender permits for their emissions, forest landholderswould receive permits for their net sequestration. Coverage of reforestation wouldthus provide a mechanism for crediting increments in forest carbon.
“The Garnaut Review suggests that reforestation be eligible to generate offsetcredits. This would achieve a very similar outcome to scheme coverage – that is,crediting increases in forest carbon – but would involve additional compliance costsfor both industry and government. These would arise because of the need todemonstrate that forest carbon meets international offset standards, namely that itwill be permanently maintained and is additional to business‐as‐usual.”
The Green Paper states that the implications of covering reforestation “would createincentives to establish new forests. A shift towards less emissions‐intensiveactivities, including farm forestry, is an intended consequence of the scheme, as itwould reflect an efficient allocation of resources taking into account the carbonprice.”
We submit that no lesser implications apply in the application of biochars to use inagriculture by farming families and in other industries where they have hitherto notbeen used thereby either creating carbon sinks or reducing reliance on greenhousegas emitting activities or both. This is to be distinguished from situations where lowor no till farming techniques allow carbon already sequestrated in the soil to remainthere. We do not suggest that the inclusion of the use of biochar as a means ofcarbon sequestration worthy of attracting offsets should in any way accelerate theGovernment’s intended inclusion of agriculture itself in the CPRS.
Incorporating biochar into the CPRS would have an additional benefit in that itwould provide an incentive for the conversion of trees already felled (and currentlytreated, pursuant to the Kyoto rules, as if all the carbon contained therein has beenreleased into the atmosphere – which is not the case) into biochar by way ofpyrolysis. There are many millions of tonnes of felled trees on stations throughoutrural Australia.
Direct government payments or the award of offsets to farming families for biocharapplications is easily justifiable, as the farmers would be providing criticalenvironmental and ecosystem services to the rest of the population. In addition tosequestering carbon by adding biochar to their soils, farmers would be benefittingall by virtue of increased crop yields resulting from the use of biochar. This would enable farming families thus far excluded from the scheme to be at the forefront ofthe fight against climate change.
Other potential users of biochar such as mining companies (in the repatriating ofmines); engineering companies (incorporation into land reinstatement in pipeline,rail, road projects and the like); fertiliser companies (in replacing traditionalfertilisers in their products with biochar or by adding biochar to composts andpotting mixes) and government departments, both state and federal, (specifying andrequiring its use in a multitude of community golf courses, ovals etc. andinfrastructural projects) would not only participate in the generation of numerousand innovative carbon sinks but should also be entitled to benefit by way of offsetsfrom such innovations.
Mining and engineering companies may also wish to purchase the biochar purely forthe offsets they attract and donate the biochar to farmers.
The Premier (Anna Bligh) and Deputy Premier (Paul Lucas) of Queensland havedirected that the Queensland Departments of Main Roads and Public Works activelyconsider the incorporation of biochar into their projects. It remains to be seen ifthis comes to fruition.
The New South Wales Minister for Primary Industries has, recently, recognised thepotential for the use of biochar to revolutionise climate mitigation and adaptation inAustralian agriculture. He stated that biochar is a product being hailed as a possiblesaviour for Australia’s carbon‐depleted soils, that also has multiple greenhouse gasbenefits. "Biochar holds particular potential for long-term carbon sequestration,improving soil health and water holding capacity, and further reducing emissionsof greenhouse gases associated with fertiliser application” he said.
That industry is prepared to embrace the potential use of carbon sinks is clearlydemonstrated by the recent purchase of large tracts of land by major companies forthe planting of forestry to act as carbon sinks; this is highly laudable but, in our submission, not as effective as the use of biochar for the same purpose.
Although it is not mentioned in The Green Paper, The Garnaut Review did refer tothe use of biochar stating, “As reliable measurement rules of thumb are developed,carbon stored in wood products and biochar should also be reflected in carbon accounting and under the scheme”.
Establishing carbon sinks through the addition of biochar to both the soil and otherprojects as outlined above has a number of advantages over the use of forestry assinks.
Firstly, whereas forests are subject to growth uncertainty under increasinglyunusual climatic conditions and damage and destruction through disease (e.g. DutchElm) weather and fire, thereby releasing stored gasses back into the atmospherebiochar is not; it lies below the soil and even if runoff by flood into rivers or theocean the carbon within it still remains sequestered.
Secondly, whereas forests are only as good as the people who look after them, a sinkof biochar needs no‐one to tend it or nurture it; requires no fertiliser or water tosustain it; is not susceptible to changes of mind or policy (cannot be felled to makepaper or used for other industrial purposes) and is capable of storing greenhousegasses for perhaps thousands of years.
Thirdly, carbon storage in soils by way of biochar far exceeds the potential carbonsequestration in plant biomass even if bare soil were, theoretically, restocked toprimary forest (Sombroek et al., 2003).
Fourthly, biochar has the potential to sequestrate carbon for far longer than forestryalone with some academics suggesting that biochar has a half‐life in soil of in excessof 1000 years (Glaser et al., 2002).
Fifthly, bio‐char can act as a soil conditioner enhancing plant growth (obviouslyincluding the forests which may be planted therein) by supplying and, moreimportantly, retaining nutrients and by providing other services such as improvingsoil physical and biological properties (Glaser et al., 2002; Lehmann et al., 2003a;Lehmann and Rondon, 2005). Biochars generally hold a number of times their ownweight in water and therefore may be of assistance in fighting drought.
What is biochar?
The Garnaut Review defines biochar as a charcoal product made through theanaerobic combustion of biomass (for example farm or wood waste) at hightemperatures.
Biochar is non‐graphitic carbon with an aromatic structure, which is a pyrolytictransition from a carbohydrate biomass to the graphitic carbon structure throughthe amorphous structure of carbon (Kishimoto 1998).
The term 'biochar' refers to black carbon formed by the pyrolysis of biomass i.e. byheating biomass in an oxygen‐free or low oxygen environment such that it does not(or only partially) combusts. Traditional charcoal is one example of biocharproduced from wood. The term 'biochar' is much broader than this however,encompassing black carbon produced from any biomass feedstock (Dominic Woolf Jan 2008).
How is biochar made?
Biochar is produced by a process of slow burning of biomass in the absence ofoxygen (slow pyrolysis). There is an alternative of ‘fast pyrolysis’ where the biomassis exposed to a high temperature (in excess of 500°C) for a few seconds, but this haslargely been focused on the production of gases or liquids as fuels, rather than on biochar.
Upon charring approximately 50% of the carbon contained in the biomass is immediately released, leaving a stable bio‐char residue. Non bio‐char materialdecomposing in soil will initially release carbon more slowly over time. However,release of carbon continues until almost all carbon is lost and can be estimated to beless than 10–20% carbon remaining in agricultural soil after 5–10 years (dependingon carbon quality and environment). Thus ultimately the bio‐char application leads to considerably greater amounts of carbon remaining in soil than application of uncharred organic matter ‐ Lehmann, Gaunt & Rondon.
Whether created by slow or fast pyrolysis, it is the addition of biochar to soil thatprovides the means of permanently sequestering the carbon. This process has anarray of beneficial effects namely that biochar increases the fertility of the soil, not in the form of organic carbon, but in the way that a coral reef increases the nutrients available to biota in the sea. Microorganisms that fix nitrogen, for example, are encouraged by the addition of biochar, and it has quite a spectacular impact onreducing the release of other greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide. Thus, soilsthat are being impoverished by conventional fertilizer‐driven agriculture have thechance to be regenerated through production of biofuels combined with biocharamendment to the soils. In terms of atmospheric carbon sequestration, Lehmannand others believe that gigatonnes of carbon can be removed ‐ up to 4Gt per year, oras much as the carbon flux currently created through burning of all fossil fuels.There is already a legislative initiative in the US Congress to channel federal supporttowards biochar initiatives (Mathews 2007).
In a bioenergy system, the initial loss of carbon during charring can be used forenergy production and can offset fossil fuel use. In addition to the much greaterlongevity, a key advantage of bio‐char with respect to soil ecosystem functions isthat it is more efficient in improving soil fertility and nutrient retention than uncharred organic matter (Sombroek et al. 1993; Lehmann and Rondon 2005).
Not all agricultural waste materials are suitable to produce bio‐char, including manyfield or vegetable crop residues with the notable exception of rice husks, which hashigh concentrations of silica entrapping carbon during combustion (Raveendran etal. 1995). Rice husks are typically regarded as a waste product, but can be used tosequester carbon by producing biochar. Other crop residues such as nut shells (e.g.,groundnut, hazelnut, macadamia nut, walnut, chestnut, coconut) but also bagasse from sugar cane processing, olive or tobacco waste are suitable and are in somelocations available in large quantities. Forestry waste and sawmill residues areeffective feedstocks in the manufacture of biochar.
Best Energies has a pyrolysis facility capable of using a wide range of materialsincluding very high moisture feedstocks such as animal manures, abattoir residues,poultry litter and food processing waste in the production of biochar.
For how long will the carbon remain sequestered in biochar?
If biochar is to be useful for the purposes of sequestering carbon, it is necessary that it must be long‐lived and resistant to chemical processes such as oxidation to carbon dioxide or reduction to methane.
There is no doubt that in certain environments, charcoal is indeed recalcitrant. In astudy of marine sediments in the North Pacific Basin, Herring (1985) found that“charcoal in the marine sediment is stable for several tens of millions of years” andthat “charcoal forms a large percentage of the carbon content in the sediments”.Large accumulations of charred material with residence times in excess of 1000years have also been found in soil profiles (Forbes et al 2006, Glaser et al 2001,Saldarriaga, et al 1986). Glaser et al (2003) attribute the presence of large stocks ofpyrogenic black carbon in Amazonian dark earths, several hundred years after thecessation of activities that added it to the soil, to its chemical recalcitrance. Also, ages of black carbon of 1000 to 1500 years from Amazonian Dark Earths suggestthat it is highly stable (Glaser, 1999).
Deposits of charcoal up to 9500 years old have been found in wet tropical forestsoils in Guyana (Hammond et al, 2007), up to 6000 years old in Amazonia (Soubies1979), and up to 23,000 years old in Costa Rica (Titiz & Sanford, 2007).
The conclusion that biochar is long‐lived is supported by Bird and Gröcke (1997)who found that a component of charred material is highly oxidation resistant underlaboratory treatment both with acid dichromate and basic peroxide. The fraction ofbiochar that will exhibit such oxidation resistance will of course depend upon boththe feedstock and pyrolysis conditions (Dominic Woolf Jan 2008).
Even if, as some authors suggest, biochar (or specific biochars) is more susceptibleto decomposition than suggested above and has only a half‐life of several hundredyears we submit that this should not make it any the less deserving of inclusion inthe CPRS. Forestry sinks may, in theory, last for much less than a century,dependent upon climatic conditions, disease or fire.
Obviously it would be preferable if biochar were to last relatively unaltered in soils,the sea and river beds and other, as yet unspecified, sinks for many millenniahowever, even sequestration for a few hundred years may serve the purpose in“providing a useful tool to manage the global climate while human society make thetransition away from fossil fuel dependence provided that we replenish soil carbonstocks faster than they decompose” (Dominic Woolf Jan 2008).
Inclusion of biochar in the CPRS
Australian Biochars is not in a position to advise exactly how biochar would beincorporated into the scheme. Opportunities do exist, however, for the participationof carbon sequestration by the use of biochar, not only by the bodies set out above,namely mining corporations, engineering companies, farming families and State andFederal Government, but also but also by individuals wishing to participate in thefight against climate change. At the lowest level, biochar may be incorporated intothe home garden in the same way as are composts and potting mixes, with fertilisercompanies being eligible for the offset credits earned according to the quantity ofbiochars they use in their products annually. This would make both for ease ofaccounting and ease of participation by almost anyone wishing to become involved.Although the low quantities of biochar used in home garden products renders itimpractical to offer offsets to individuals for their use, such usage shouldnonetheless be encouraged and participants receive financial incentives by way ofelimination of taxation on all carbon sequestration products, not restricted tobiochar, used in activities mentioned above.
Again, we submit that the same incentives should apply to commercial fertiliserswith the manufacturing companies receiving the offsets and the commercial users(farms) benefitting from taxation reductions.
In the case of mining companies and engineering companies offsets would beearned on the amount of biochar used in their respective projects (sinks).Government project requirements could require a specified percentage of biocharbe used in appropriate projects with an entitlement to offsets based on the quantityof biochar used.
AUSTRALIAN BIOCHARS PTY. LTD.
Reference material.
Australian Biochars acknowledges referring to the following sources in thecompilation of this submission. We apologise in the event that we may have inadvertently omitted to acknowledge any particular work or author.
K.Y. Chan, L. Van Zwieten, I. Meszaros, A. Downie, and S. Joseph. 2007. Agronomicvalues of greenwaste biochar as a soil amendment.
Forbes, M.S., R.J. Raison, and J.O. Skjemstad. 2006. Formation, transformation andtransport of black carbon (charcoal) in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems.Garnaut. Climate change review, Draft Report.
Glaser, B., Lehmann, J., Zech, W. (2002), “Ameliorating physical and chemicalproperties of highly weathered soils in the tropics with charcoal ‐ a review”.Hammond, D., Steege, H. and Van der Borg, K. (2007), “Upland Soil Charcoal in theWet Tropical Forests of Central Guyana.
Lehmann, J., Gaunt, J. and Rondon, M. (2006); “Bio‐char sequestration in terrestrialecosystems – a review”, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, 11,403–427
Lehmann, J. (2007), “Bio‐energy in the Black” accepted for publication in Frontiers inEcology and the Environment.
Lehmann, J. (2007), “A handful of carbon” Nature 447, no. 7141 (May 10): 143‐144.Mathews J Carbon‐negative biofuels 2007.
Saldarriaga, Juan G., and Darrell C. West. 1986. Holocene fires in the northern Amazon basin.
Sombroek, W., De Lourdes Ruivo, M., Fearnside, P., Glaser, B., Lehmann, J. (2003),“Amazonian Dark Earths As Carbon Stores And Sinks”, Chapter 7 in Lehmann, J. et al.(eds), Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management, 141‐158, Kluwer,Netherlands.
Soubies, F. (1979) “Existence of a dry period in the Brazilian Amazonia datedthrough soil carbon.
Titiz, B. and Sanford, R. (2007), "Soil Charcoal in Old‐Growth Rain Forests from SeaLevel to the Continental Divide.
Woolf, D. (2008), Biochar as a soil amendment: A review of the environmental implications.
