Sam (cc 2 lists):
1. First, thanks for forwarding my yesterday "Geo" message to "Biochar-Policy".
You raise an important question on how to proceed with getting funds for
Biochar implementation. My immediate reaction is to support any official policy
that is trying to accelerate CDR andBiochar, and both of your
identifications/suggestions below are well worth supporting. I also support
taxation - as being pushed by Jim Hansen. I would prefer that not all of the
tax be reimbursed equally on a per capita basis; I would rather see some saved
for supporting early demonstrations.
2. I wandered around the Australian site you gave below and was pleasantly
surprised to find Biochar specifically called out in several places. However,
there is no actual money for credits available - only (I think) a registration
process that allows a government-monitored sale in voluntary markets. Not
everything, but helpful.
There is reference to CSIRO being in charge of supporting farmers (with new
funds). I have been most impressed by CSIRO work with Biochar. Maybe only the
UKBRC activity at Edinburg comes close to being as complete. I heard the head
of the CSIRO Biochar activity (Dr. Evelyn Krull) speak last month at the
regional Biochar meeting in Kyoto - and was greatly impressed by the range of
work they have undertaken. They will be releasing shortly a major report that
should get us much closer to being able to match up chars with soils and
species. This CSIRO group is well organized, and I think they will be well able
to help Australian farmers enter the voluntary market - the first country to do
so.
There are now quite a few Biochar reports and literature available from CSIRO.
I recommend one of about 56 pages from 2009:
http://www.csiro.au/files/files/poei.pdf
Here is a brief quote on policy:
"Separate evaluations should be made for the economic and environmental
sustainability of
alternative biochar scenarios. If the assured carbon-equivalent gain available
using biochar is
positive but the economic analysis for mainstream agriculture negative, then
utilisation of
economic instruments – most likely carbon trading or a subsidy that ensures
biochar is used
in soil rather than for combustion – is essential. The introduction, expansion
or revision of
such instruments that place a monetary value on the utilisation or disposal of
organic waste,
maintenance of soil quality and support for renewable and bioenergy as a whole
may then be
considered.
For any biochar scenario it is possible that the agronomic value for biochar is
sufficient to
render the economic evaluation positive, without resorting to carbon markets or
Government
incentives. Then concerted research effort will be sufficient to establish
certainty around the
extent and realisation of such benefits. "
[RWL: So in sum, it is great that you brought this move towards more official
Australian government support for Biochar to our attention - and we now have to
see if it is enough. I had missed this big event.
Minor point - I learned a new (mainly Australian) word - from the official
dialog leading up to passage. This Act is apparently now immune from "rorting".
3. I have also been to your site given below. I believe that your "feebates"
are essentially taxes?
Ron
----- Original Message -----
From: "Sam Carana" <sam.car...@gmail.com>
To: "geoengineering" <geoengineering@googlegroups.com>, "biochar-policy"
<biochar-pol...@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 9:50:52 PM
Subject: [biochar-policy] Re: [geo] Biochar Nature paper
Question: What policy framework can best encourage biochar?
The Australian Government has introduced carbon credits
http://www.daff.gov.au/climatechange/cfi
An alternative policy framework is described at the Biochar Economy, at:
http://knol.google.com/k/sam-carana/the-biochar-economy/7y50rvz9924j/88
Cheers!
Sam Carana
On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 2:06 PM, < rongretlar...@comcast.net > wrote:
> Greg and list:
>
> Thanks for bringing this two-year old (downloadable) Biochar paper from
> "Nature" below to the list's attention. I admire the work of Wolff,
> Amonette (corresponding author, responsible for the Excel work), etal. But
> I think they went overboard on being conservative. They say: " Wherever
> possible, conservative assumptions were used to provide a high degree of
> confidence that our results represent a conservative estimate of the avoided
> GHG emissions achievable in each scenario.". I know three of the five
> authors; one of them gave a (much less-documented) estimate that was an
> order-of-magnitude higher. Tim Lenton has repeated this higher number. I
> believe the most recent paper by Jim Hansen, which I think proposes 100 GtC
> of new standing forests, is assuming larger land use change than is assumed
> in this paper, or by those promoting BECCS. In my view, there is probably
> one Gha available for reforestation and the paper limits the agroforestry
> total to 170 Mha (all with latitude less than 25 degrees). They also assume
> only about 4 tC/ha-yr to be available (with about half going into char -
> about 30% of their total annual combined carbon neutral and carbon negative
> peak). I believe we will do appreciably better than this assumed 400 grams
> C/sqm-yr in the tropics (with about half of this parameter being available
> for sequestration).
> Resources that receive little/zero consideration in this paper include
> a. The ocean - having an NPP roughly equal to that of land. Mangroves
> have always been highly regarded for char making - and can be harvested
> sustainably. Artificial nutrient upwelling and macroalgae are not
> mentioned.
> b. Freshwater microalgae - which provides potential access to the Gha of
> deserts.
> c. Fire-prevention possibilities (possibly another 1 GtC/yr)
> d. Conversion of considerable pasture and idle land (there is only a
> minimum assumed conversion of farm land - as noted above for agroforestry.
> As noted above considerably higher values than 4 tC/ha-yr are in the
> literature.)
> e. Potential for improved bioenergy species productivity (little past
> emphasis by geneticists on energy crops).
> f. There is little on the ability to manage forests to increase (maybe
> double or triple?) annual productivity by keeping the canopy open, using
> multiple species and multiple levels in forests, and employing a lot of
> people for coppicing etc..
> g. Little emphasis on emphasizing the advantages of more extensive
> reforestation of tropical areas - where annual productivity can triple that
> in temperate zones. (But we can do both, where temperate land is idle.)
> h. No assumed increase in soil productivity due to Biochar application
> (and the terra preta literature talks of double and triple soil productivity
> increase).
> i. HTC - hydrothermal conversion (of moist resources, such as MSW,
> feedlot effluent, etc) - where HTC proponents talk about a potential for
> half of future carbon sequestration via that route.
> j. The use of charcoal-making stoves for the half of the world now
> predominantly getting their energy (very inefficiently) from biomass. This
> can be expanded readily to larger scale operations presently having zero
> fossil fuels.
> k. The potential role of Biochar for supporting (intermittent) wind and
> solar - as biomass can provide needed energy storage.
> l. I believe they show soil organic carbon (SOC) decreasing - and most
> Biochar analysts assume an increase.
> m. Any sense of political urgency - as being pushed by the 350 ppm
> movement (including Dr. Hansen)
> n. No discussion of what can happen with new policies that might come
> out of different politics.
>
> None of the above dozen possible resource expansion areas requires
> cutting existing forests, nor use of peat regions.
>
> I am also looking into the details of the paper's comparisons with
> combustion, etc. I think this may also have been conservative. For
> instance if one has added annual productivity after applying char, credit
> should be given for that additional annual growth (even if cut annually) and
> standing biomass. I believe no such credit is given although it would be the
> main claim for a new forest.
>
> There are a few other similar Biochar papers striving to get at the
> details. It is on these details that we must now concentrate - and the
> Wolff-Amonette paper contains as much or more detail as any I have seen. To
> repeat, their arguments are well supported - albeit mostly using the most
> conservative number in a spectrum. I am only declaring that our CDR world
> is large enough to have both conservative and more optimistic views being
> discussed. I would love to have further conversation with anyone on this
> list re my concerns on this paper being overly conservative.
>
> Thanks again to Greg for bringing this excellent paper to the list's
> attention.
>
> Ron
>
> ________________________________
> From: "Greg Rau" < r...@llnl.gov >
> To: "geoengineering" < geoengineering@googlegroups.com >
> Sent: Wednesday, October 12, 2011 1:40:22 PM
> Subject: [geo] Biochar Nature paper
>
> http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v1/n5/full/ncomms1053.html?WT.ec_id=EXTERNAL&WT.mc_id=NC1108CE061
>
>
> Production of biochar (the carbon (C)-rich solid formed by pyrolysis of
> 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 (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide could be reduced by a maximum of
> 1.8 Pg CO2-C equivalent (CO2-Ce) per year (12% of current anthropogenic
> CO2-Ce emissions; 1 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 sustainably procured biomass for bioenergy, except
> when fertile soils are amended while coal is the fuel being offset.
>
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