You are hereBlogs / Gerard Rego's blog / Al Gore, Biochar and driving the next cycle ~ Newsweek article & The Economist
Al Gore, Biochar and driving the next cycle ~ Newsweek article & The Economist
Mahatma Gandhi said "It is not Mass Production but Production by the Masses that will make villages sustainable and India as a country", a socio-economic business model that inspired us to create a business.
Last evening when I was on a flight from Bangalore I read the Newsweek Nov 9th issue and saw the article on climate change and on Al Gore titled "The Evolution Of An Eco-Prophet" and rightly so.
What caught my attention was these paragraphs....the critical role of how Biochar according to Al Gore "one of the most exciting new strategies for restoring carbon to depleted soils, and sequestering significant amounts of CO2."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552
"Gore loves plants and soils as only a former farm boy can (well, a summertime farm boy: as a kid he spent the school year in Washington, where his father was a senator). He regales you with numbers: more CO2 is emitted from burning and destroying forests—20 to 23 percent of the annual total—than from all the world's cars and trucks; only by the 1980s did CO2 from fossil fuels overtake that from deforestation, which accounts for 40 percent of the CO2 increase since the 1800s............
To his credit, Gore sides with the science, letting the political chips fall where they may. He writes that soils could sequester an additional 15 percent of annual global CO2 emissions from fossil fuels. That could cut 50 parts per million of CO2 from the atmosphere over the next 50 years. (We are now at 387, up from 280 before the industrial era, with 450 ppm or even less a dangerous level.) To encourage changes in agriculture that would foster carbon sequestration, Gore advocates moving away from price supports and toward paying farmers for "how much carbon they can put into and keep in their soil," he says. Paying farmers to sequester carbon might jump-start the use of biochar, which Gore calls "one of the most exciting new strategies for restoring carbon to depleted soils, and sequestering significant amounts of CO2." Biochar, which he learned about during a 1989 trip to the Amazon, is basically porous charcoal. Made by burning switch grass, corn husks, and other waste, it can absorb CO2 like a charcoal filter in a cigarette absorbs gases. Gore estimates that biochar could sequester 40 percent of annual CO2 emissions....."
This is true. Like agriculture and all renewables, the two main pain-points are;
i. "fragmentation of supply chains", &
ii. A SOCIAL BUSINESS
drivers often not understood and thus a critical element left out of all business models. Which is why we hardly see any sustainable and replicable solution.
and we have the business model of community based aggregation and we are now going live on our first biochar POC and will replicate after this on an Inclusive For-Profit Sustainable & Replicable business model.
i. Inclusive - The farming communities supply chains are integrated into the solution from an agricultural and economic ROI
ii. Sustainable - Socially, Environmentally & Economically
&
iii. Replicable - Forming supply chain community clusters of 50-100 km radius and replicating these clusters a over the country on a business model that leverage "Fragmentation of Supply Chains" as a paint point.
So why are we doing biochar:
i. A natural derivative of otherwise waste biomass from our cropcycles
ii. Drives agricultural productivity creating greater yields from cropcycle & builds soil depth
iii. Optimizes water for irrigation in rainfed & irrigated cycles
iv. Creates local jobs for women CSGs (Community Support Groups)
v. Generates a greater ROI for our farming supply chain communities, & last but not the least
vi. Sequestrates carbon for at least > 1,000 years creating a tremendous carbon negative model for the environment
After all we are a for-profit social business whose focus is the farming community and the environment with a sustainable and replicable business & revenue model for the value chain in the ecosystem.
So Al Gore is right and this is one of the greatest opportunities in mankind's history. An article from The Economist titled;
"A new growth industry? Aug 27th 2009 | BOULDER, COLORADO From The Economist print edition Biochar could enrich soils and cut greenhouse gases as well"
http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14302001
The key. Execution of a Sustainable & Replicable business model.
http://fellows.rdvp.org/gerard-rego/biochar-soil-remediation-agricultural-productivity-water-optimization-carbon-sequestrati
All political persuasions agree, building soil carbon is GOOD.
To Hard bitten Farmers, wary of carbon regulations that only increase their costs, Building soil carbon is a savory bone, to do well while doing good.
Biochar provides the tool powerful enough to cover Farming's carbon foot print while lowering cost simultaneously.
Another significant aspect of bichar is removal of BC aerosols by low cost ($3) Biomass cook stoves that produce char but no respiratory disease emissions. At Scale, replacing "Three Stone" stoves the health benefits would equal eradication of Malaria.
http://terrapretapot.org/ and village level systems http://biocharfund.org/
The Congo Basin Forest Fund (CBFF).recently funded The Biochar Fund $300K for these systems citing these priorities;
(1) Hunger amongst the world's poorest people, the subsistence farmers of Sub-Saharan Africa,
(2) Deforestation resulting from a reliance on slash-and-burn farming,
(3) Energy poverty and a lack of access to clean, renewable energy, and
(4) Climate change.
The Biochar Fund :
Exceptional results from biochar experiment in Cameroon
http://scitizen.com/screens/blogPage/viewBlog/sw_viewBlog.php?idTheme=14&idContribution=3011
http://www.carboncommentary.com/2009/10/01/761/comment-page-1#comment-2558
The broad smiles of 1500 subsistence farmers say it all ( that , and the size of the Biochar corn root balls )
http://biocharfund.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=55&Itemid=75
Mark my words;
Given the potential for Laurens Rademaker's programs to grow exponentialy, only a short time lies between This man's nomination for a Noble Prize.
This authoritative PNAS article should cause the recent Royal Society Report to rethink their criticism of Biochar systems of Soil carbon sequestration;
Reducing abrupt climate change risk using
the Montreal Protocol and other regulatory
actions to complement cuts in CO2 emissions
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/10/09/0902568106.full.pdf+html
There are dozens soil researchers on the subject now at USDA-ARS.
and many studies at The up coming ASA-CSSA-SSSA joint meeting;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2009am/webprogram/Session5675.html
The Clean Energy Partnerships Act of 2009
The bill is designed to ensure that any US domestic cap-and-trade bill provides maximum incentives and opportunities for the US agricultural and forestry sectors to provide high-quality offsets and GHG emissions reductions for credit or financial incentives. Carbon offsets play a critical role in keeping the costs of a cap-and-trade program low for society as well as for capped sectors and entities, while providing valuable emissions reductions and income generation opportunities for the agricultural sector. The bill specifically identifies biochar production and use as eligible for offset credits, and identifies biochar as a high priority for USDA R&D, with funding authorized by the bill.
To read the full text of the bill, go to: http://www.biochar-international.org/sites/default/files/END09F94.pdf.
Senator Baucus is co-sponsoring a bill along with Senator Tester (D-MT) called WE CHAR. Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration Act! It focuses on promoting biochar technology to address invasive species and forest biomass. It includes grants and loans for biochar market research and development, biochar characterization and environmental analyses. It directs USDI and USDA to provide loan guarantees for biochar technologies and on-the-ground production with an emphasis on biomass from public lands. And the USGS is to do biomas availability assessments.
WashingtonWatch.com - S. 1713, The Water Efficiency via Carbon Harvesting and Restoration (WECHAR) Act of 2009
Individual and groups can show support for WECHAR by signing online at:
www.biocharmatters.org
http://www.biocharmatters.org/
Congressional Research Service report (by analyst Kelsi Bracmort) is the best short summary I have seen so far - both technical and policy oriented.
http://assets.opencrs.com/rpts/R40186_20090203.pdf .
United Nations Environment Programme, Climate Change Science Compendium 2009
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/
http://www.unep.org/compendium2009/PDF/Ch5_compendium2009.pdf
Endorsements;
Bill Clinton said Biochar;
Mantria Industries inducted in Clinton Global Intuitive
http://www.mantria.com/eg_presidential_video.shtml
Al Gore got the CO2 absorption thing wrong, ( at NABC Vilsack did same), but his focus on Soil Carbon is right on;
http://www.newsweek.com/id/220552/page/3
Research:
The future of biochar - Project Rainbow Bee Eater
http://www.sciencealert.com.au/features/20090211-20142.html
Japan Biochar Association ;
http://www.geocities.jp/yasizato/pioneer.htm
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Cheers,
Erich
Eric
Thank you for your inputs and feedback. Look forward to collaborating together and cannot but agree with you.
Sounds very exciting sir.
Biochar in an altogether new approach with a better ROI than we predicted earlier and that too keeping the benefit of the CSGs intact.
All the very best.
Get Set Go Sir.
Regards.
Subhendu Kumar Panigrahi.
Intern Vayugrid (June - Aug 2009).
I hope Al Gore was misquoted here ”Biochar, which he learned about during a 1989 trip to the Amazon, is basically porous charcoal. Made by burning switch grass, corn husks, and other waste, it can absorb CO2 like a charcoal filter in a cigarette absorbs gases. Gore estimates that biochar could sequester 40 percent of annual CO2 emissions.”
It is right that biochar can sequester significant amounts of carbon but it is not absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere like a filter. Biochar is the carbon contained in the plant biomass. The formation of biochar reduces the speed of decomposition substantially and thus keeps the carbon from re-entering the atmosphere. It is a manipulation of the carbon cycle in a positive way. Fire is accelerating the carbon cycle – biochar as decelerating the carbon cycle.
Post new comment