Rachel, You wrote
Here is what the Convention on Biological Diversity Second Ad Hoc Technical > Experts Group on Biodiversity and Climate Change states: > > 160. The long-term stability of biochar in soils is, as yet, unknown and > large-scale development could result in additional land use pressures. The > effectiveness and long-term stability of biochar in soils has not yet been > established. Furthermore, large-scale deployment of biochar may require > significant amounts of biomass, creating the need for additional lands to > grow biomass and thus creating additional land-use pressures. > *<http://www.conservation.org/Documents/CBD_2009_connecting_biodiveris>** > http://www.conservation.org/Documents/CBD_2009_connecting_biodiveris > ty_and_climate_change_mitigation_and_adaptation.pdf > > * > I don't know who dreams these statements up. Sitting behind all these computers, reading what each other type out on these screens and formulating what to type out in response, we seem to lose all connection to practical common sense. The first thing one has to do to understand how biochar might evolve in the real world is to put yourself in the shoes of a farmer. If biochar works for him on both a financial and agricultural basis, it can be added to agricultural soils, otherwise not. If if doesn't work for a farmer, then the only means by which char production would become widespread - enough for it to become the disaster you portray it to be - is if some way is devised for society to pay for it. If a farmer doesn't pay for it, who will? And how will that be politically and financially arranged? Think about what that would entail. A carbon tax? To fund the purchase of vast amounts of land, grow the feedstock, produce the char, and dump it in a landfill? Is that likely, particularly in light of the financial crisis, continued strong opposition to climate legislation in the US, and the weakening of support for carbon markets after Copenhagen? How would this scheme be sustained over the long term, particularly with multiple natural resource shortages combined with population increases curtailing economic expansion, if not hastening contraction? You can't just skip over the financial part of all of this and expect to build a credible argument. The cost of biochar, if it becomes widespread, will very likely lay with millions of farmers across the world. A farmer's primary concern, driven by the demanding financial realities of a primary producer of agricultural goods, is soil fertility. The *long*-term stability of biochar in soils may be highly interesting from a climate change perspective, but it is completely inconsequential to a farmer's bottom-line reality. The thing he has to care about, and farmers have to make complex financial decisions about every intervention they may consider to improve productivity, is whether the investment he makes in adding biochar to his soils will result in financial gain or loss. Farmers are very careful about large scale investments. They know they can lose it all if they make a mistake. That's where the phrase "betting the farm" comes from. Get to know how a farmer thinks about large investments, and you will have a much clearer vision of biochar's potential. Now let's review the statements of para 160 from your source at conservation.org standing in a farmer's shoes. If you, as a farmer, purchase additional land, or use a portion of your current holding, to grow feedstock to produce biochar, what *has* to occur for that to make financial sense? Stop and think about it, and remember that farmers operate under tight margins and uncertain productivity conditions. Here's what has to happen: Overall, *including the land used to produce feedstock for biochar,* bottom-line productivity has to rise, or you simply won't be able to make it work financially. It simply cannot happen that hundreds of thousands of farmers use land to grow feedstock unless it increases their bottom line productivity enough that it reduces land use pressure. Simple farm economics dictate this fact. It is indeed very unlikely that you'll get even *one* farmer to increase land use pressure from the use of biochar for any sustained length of time, much less for one growing season. If you don't believe me, go to a farmer, explain the scheme (for example, buy the neighbor's farm, grow trees, make biochar, etc) and see what happens. I can guarantee you he won't see the logic in it unless you can demonstrate to him, beyond any doubt, that overall, his bottom-line productivity per hectare will rise. Otherwise he will use that land to produce food and sell it. Let's review this paragraph again one more time now that we're firmly in a farmer's *boots.* *The long-term stability of biochar in soils is, as yet, unknown *[fine by me, I'm paying for it]* and large-scale development could result in additional land use pressures *[not if I pay for it]*. The effectiveness and long-term stability of biochar in soils has not yet been established *[Yes, I heard you the first time, I'm not interested in "long term" stability so we don't need to prove it beyond any doubt. I need enhanced soil fertility]. * Furthermore, large-scale deployment of biochar may require significant amounts of biomass *[I'll add it gradually with whatever waste biomass I have at hand, produced here on the farm, otherwise the cost will very likely exceed the potential gain]*, creating the need for additional lands to grow biomass and thus creating additional land-use pressures [Hello! You're not making any sense at all. I cannot financially sustain an ever growing spiral of more land needing more biochar needing more biomass. I'm not in that business and don't have a market for it. We produce food. We're interested in augmenting soil fertility, but cannot pay any price for it. You're not thinking straight. ]* Now an important question. If a farmer isn't going to carry the cost of all this land use pressure creating biochar production, who is going to pay for it? I've suggested that there isn't anyone, but try, at least in your mind, to get someone, anyone, to invest any significant sum of money in a scheme to produce biochar with no clear financial gain associated with it. If you want conclusive proof, spend about a year going from foundation to foundation, meeting after meeting, in and out of government offices, explaining the potential environmental benefits of biochar again and again and again, asking for money. Then you will know for sure that biochar isn't likely to cause land use pressure issues, it's too difficult to find people willing to throw their money away. You will also see that all the arguments against biochar that go on about land use pressure, deforestation, competition for land reducing food production, etc, etc, including all the photos in BFWs documents of devastated forests, are cleverly devised straw men. Without someone with a clear financial justification to pay for all that charcoal, it can't happen. You might argue here that charcoal production already causes significant deforestation, you have in the past, but that char is produced for heating purposes, often in a developing world context in poverty, to be sold to a * retail* market in very small lots. According to our own financial analysis and that of others, such an approach to obtaining charcoal for biochar production, where tonnes per hectare across many hectares is needed, is likely to be financially inviable. It's too expensive in relation to the potential for financial gain from the fertility increase. We spent $350 a tonne for charcoal produced from trees that legally had to be removed and delivered over some 150 kilometers in one case. Industry observers will tell you that's about the price, worldwide, for char produced from trees by third parties. At an application rate of 20 tonnes per hectare that's a cost of $7000 per hectare for the char alone when you produce your char off-farm from trees and have it shipped in. Take a broad acre crop like corn, where the gross annual yield per hectare is generally under $1000. Let's assume you can raise productivity, say by 20%. It would take 35 years to recoup your investment, more because we aren't including incorporation costs. Even if you are a "good soul", believe in biochar as a means to "save the world", who's going to loan you the money? Now, I'm *not* saying biochar cannot be used in broad acre farming. It may work financially if you find a way to lower the costs significantly, your soils are low in carbon so your gains are higher, you use intelligent strategies in the preparation and incorporation of the char, such as banding, and the crop responds well. I *am* saying that your photos of disseminated forests in your biochar publications are grossly misleading, as are many of the statements in your texts that imply that biochar production can run out of control somehow, causing land use pressure and deforestation. Who's going to pay for that luxury? If we in the developed world can't afford it, how is poor farmer in the developing world going to pay for it? Straw man. I'm not saying it cannot happen in an isolated instance. I am saying it cannot become the disaster scenario you predict, simply because the numbers don't support it. Producing biochar from trees, especially at some distance, is very likely to be prohibitively expensive, even if charcoal for heating and cooking is produced from it. In the real world, we need sustainable, consistent, preferably on-farm sources of biomass to correctly size pyrolysis systems and project investment costs and possible returns to build a case for financing. I cannot imagine farm managers sitting around a table wondering what forest they can go cut down next to produce the next lot of biochar they need. That is *not* how investments are made or justified on a farm. The margins are too tight, and the people running them too prudent. Biochar does not increase land use pressure or cause deforestation. The cause is overpopulation, too many people like you and me using the resources and knowledge they have at hand to survive. With or without biochar, as long as there are too many people, land use pressure and deforestation will continue. Biochar as a technique is simply an attempt to use those limited resources more efficiently in a multidimensional way, and in some cases, so far, it seems to work rather well. Regards, -- Nando M. Breiter The CarbonZero Project CP 234 6934 Bioggio Switzerland +41 91 606 6372 [email protected] www.carbonzero.ch -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
