Turning waste into renewable energy

Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday 30/10/2010 Page: 15

YOU may remember the biochar specialist Crucible Carbon from early last year, when the then opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull visited its Newcastle base and touted the potential for biochar to draw down CO₂ from the atmosphere. In July Crucible Carbon won a $680,000 grant from Commercialisation Australia, to prove up its Pyrolysis technology - converting biomass into gas and char by slowly burning it, without oxygen.

At the Vales Point power station of its partner Delta Energy, on Lake Macquarie, Crucible Carbon's demonstration facility will take waste from timber mills - shavings, sawdust and bark - to generate renewable energy. Next year will be the company's year of commercialisation. "It'll make us sales-ready", says its chairman, Joe Herbertson, helping it through the cashflow "valley of death" that kills off many start-ups.

Crucible Carbon turned down a substantial venture capital investment. "Once you scratched beneath the surface it was ugly", Herbertson says. They wanted management rights and 'drag and tag' rights [allowing them to sell the whole company]". Crucible Carbon's business model is to work with partners to make power and heat from agricultural residues and wastes-sugar, cotton, wheat... and wood.

"The forest and timber industry is very big for us", Herbertson says. 'We're certainly not going to be chopping down forest for the sake of it [but] along the forest and timber value chain we can generate a lot of electricity or gas for industrial heat and power".

Biochar 'can cut' greenhouse gases

Canberra Times
Saturday 21/8/2010 Page: 12

Using biochar made from crop waste or chicken manure to improve farm soil health can cut the world's greenhouse emissions by 12%, or roughly 1.8 billion tonnes a year, a new study says. A research team led by United States energy department soil chemist Jim Amonette found the organic charcoal-like substance could play "a significant role" in tackling global warming while also boosting the world's food production.

The study, published online by science journal Nature Communications, calculated the carbon content of the world's crop wastes such as rice husks, peanut shells, corn leaves and stalks, as well as farm animal manure and urban green waste. It used computer modelling to estimate how much of this biomass, could be used to produce biochar.

It found using biomass to produce biochar was up to 80% more beneficial than burning organic waste to produce bioenergy or biofuels. But Dr Amonette warned ambitious projects were needed to reap the benefits of biochar, and using it to cut global emissions "will not be accomplished by half-hearted measures".

An Australian team member. University of New South Wales renewable energy engineer Professor Stephen Joseph, said the study showed biochar "can help tackle our climate concerns in a major and sustainable way". "The beauty of the technology is that it is a win-win solution: it can be used to produce energy but at the same time reduce CO2 emission in the atmosphere", Professor Joseph said. According to the study, biochar can improve soil health and fertility by increasing microbial activity, reduce soil acidity, reduce loss of nutrients and raise plant nutrient uptake by boosting water retention.

Biochar is a fine-grained, highly porous charcoal made by burning plants, wood and other organic materials at high temperatures of between 400-800° in a process called slow Pyrolysis. Former Australian of the Year, climate change campaigner Professor Tim Flannery has described biochar as potentially "the single most important initiative for humanity's environmental future".

Dr Amonette said the scientific community had been "split on biochar" because of fears it could lead to loss of habit and land for food production. The study warns land clearing to establish plantations would release carbon in soils and trees, "Leading to an unacceptably high carbon pay back times" before any cuts to carbon emissions were achieved. Converting grasslands to biomass carbon crops" would result in a carbon-payback time greater than 10 years, and clearing rainforest would result in a carbon debt "in excess of 50 years".

The study's estimates of avoided greenhouse emissions were based on assumptions no agricultural land or native forest would be converted to biomass crop production. Other sustainability criteria included leaving sufficient crop waste to prevent soil erosion, not using crop waste used for fodder, not adding biochar made from treated building materials to agricultural soils and using only modern Pyrolysis technologies be used. These technologies fully recover the energy released in the process, and eliminate soot, methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

Modern makeover for an ancient idea

Hobart Mercury
Tuesday 6/7/2010 Page: 16

EVERY now and again in the big, unfolding saga that is climate change you find yourself heading back to the future, looking at something simple and basic that's been around forever. I had just that experience at a meeting in Hobart last week. The Tasmanian Biochar Workshop put a spotlight on charcoal, that dirty, unmanageable residue of burnt plant and animal matter, and provided its participants with ample evidence that this humble substance has big implications both for reducing atmospheric carbon and growing plants. Simply put, biochar is charcoal created by slow smouldering of organic material which, if dug into the ground, serves as a long-tern carbon store while enriching soils, boosting plant growth and improving water quality. It can hold carbon in soil for many centuries, even thousands of years.

Biochar has an ancient history. Early peoples of the Amazon basin in South America are believed to have made it by smouldering food and agricultural waste, digging it into the region's naturally infertile soil to be further broken down by native earthworms. European settlers called this wonder-soil "terra preta" (Portuguese for "black earth"). In more modern times, the charcoal burner was a familiar part of every settlement in Europe and elsewhere, including Australia, producing fuel for cooking and heating. The application of fine grained char as a soil additive is an old-new idea whose time has come around again.

But the idea of biochar has taken a while to catch on in Tasmania. In 2008 it got caught up in the debate about biomass energy from Tasmanian forestry operations, involving gathering up the woody debris left after logging and burning it in a biomass electricity generator. Some forests activists accused biochar advocates of aiding and abetting native forest clear felling by providing the logging industry with a convenient repository for its waste and a reason to extend its harvesting operations. The debate ignored the fact that the primary focus of biochar production is carbon storage and increased soil fertility. Energy generation from Pyrolysis (the process of producing biochar) and production of biofuel are additional outcomes. The process is carbon negative, which means that it takes more carbon out of the atmosphere than it releases.

The Hobart meeting was organised by international biochar consultant Attilio Pigneri, now living in Tasmania. Held under the auspices of the Australia New Zealand Biochar Researchers Network, it brought together specialists from the University of Tasmania, CSIRO, government and industry. Farmers, soil scientists and biochar business representatives mixed with interested outsiders to hear research outcomes from trials happening in Australia (including Tasmania) and New Zealand. The 60-strong audience heard that biochar production was potentially a highly valuable greenhouse mitigation and growth-enhancing tool for Tasmania whose efficacy depended on environmentally friendly biomass sourcing and production techniques and good knowledge of the best kind of biochar for particular soils.

The meeting was told that feedstock, or raw material, for biochar can come from a big range of sources, including green waste from gardens and orchards, woody weeds such as gorse or willow, food processing waste, sewage sludge and manure (including poultry litter), seaweed, crop stubble, sawdust and wood "from responsible forest management operations." Different sources produced different results, with biochar from animal waste providing better productivity for some crops and woody material benefiting others. Other variables included different soil types and climatic conditions.

The workshop examined key environmental and economic issues in use of biochar in Tasmania, questions about logistics and sustainability, synergies between environmental mitigation and regional development, commercial possibilities and the challenges of bringing biochar activities into a national carbon pricing scheme. To Pigneri, the workshop are significantly raised awareness of current biochar activities, including five University of Tasmania projects, and begun to link researchers and their work across Australia and New Zealand, while providing a base for a permanent industry Association. He and his team will use discussion outcomes from the workshop to guide future planning and inform governments about the technology's potential both in reducing atmospheric carbon and helping Tasmania improve its agricultural productivity.

My father grew up on a farm and was a lifelong vegetable gardening enthusiast, but on that score I'd have been a disappointment to him. Like so many post-war children, I turned away from my rural background towards the city life, becoming part of the "great forgetting" that serve to distance much of modern humanity from the production of food. Now, our roots are calling us back. Besides finding better ways of keeping carbon out of the atmosphere, communities everywhere need to start taking an interest in how they derive sustenance from their lands, and that means getting heads around how to manage soil to grow better plants. For me the great appeal of biochar is its basic simplicity. There's much more work to be done - years of trialling different scenarios to ensure we maximise the game from the effort - but all the signs are that public support for a biochar industry will be a splendid investment in the future.

pb@climatetasmania.com.au.

Renewable energy buzz - Labor pledge for green businesses

Hobart Mercury
Saturday 13/3/2010 Page: 17

THE State Government has promised $3 million for a green loan scheme to help businesses develop renewable energy ideas. Climate Change Minister Lisa Singh said the $3 million would be made available in no-interest loans for Tasmanian companies moving to commercialise new wind, wave, solar and geothermal technologies.

"Tasmania has the strongest knowledge bank in wind and water energy in Southi-East Asia and Labor will make sure that we take the greatest possible advantage of this position," Ms Singh said. 'We know that renewable energy will be one of the cornerstones of our future economy." Labor's announcement coincided with a plan launched by the Liberal Opposition to support the establishment of a biochar plant in Tasmania.

Ms Singh said the business green loan plan was part of Labor's target of generating more than 100% of Tasmania's power needs from renewable sources in the next decade. The minister said the Green Industry Development Scheme would provide an ideal opportunity to demonstrate green technologies and support their early commercialisation in Tasmania.

The loans would be available interest-free for the first three years and be targeted at applicants who could demonstrate an ability to manufacture renewable energy technology in Tasmania. The eligible businesses would need to demonstrate they had long-tern viability and could repay the loan after three years to the government fund. Ms Singh said the scheme would be managed by the Economic Development department.

Liberal environment spokeswoman Vanessa Goodwin used a climate action forum in Hobart on Thursday night to announce that a Hodgman Liberal government would partner with the private sector to build a biochar plant, if the business case "stacked up". Biochar is a method of storing carbon in the soil, and also has agricultural applications including enhancing crop yield. Making biochar produces gas which can be used for power generation.

Soil carbon: big potential, but maybe not yet?

Crikey.com.au
Thursday 4/2/2010 Page: 1
Opinion: Bernard Keane

One of Australia's foremost soil carbon experts has significant concerns about the Coalition's proposed funding of soil carbon initiatives, on which the Coalition is relying for more than 60% of its emissions abatement task between now and 2020. Professor Alex McBratney, Pro-Dean of Sydney University's Faculty of Agriculture Food & Natural Resources, has told Crikey that the $8-10 cost per tonne of CO2-equivalent on which the Coalition has based its figures is probably too low given the cost associated with sequestering soil carbon. "It needs to be closer to $20-40 a tonne to be viable."

Professor McBratney's comments follow eminent scientist Peter Cosier's criticism that farmers would be receiving more under the Government's CPRS than under the Coalition's plan. However, Professor McBratney is very optimistic about the potential for sequestering soil carbon and believes the Coalition is being conservative on its long-term potential.

Soil carbon-increasing carbon levels in soil through no-till or lower-till cultivation methods, composting or adding biochar to soil - has huge potential for biosequestration of carbon, locking carbon in soil for decades and, possibly, hundreds and thousands of years. It has some heavyweight backers. James Lovelock, James Hansen, Tim Flannery and Ross Garnaut are just some of climate change icons that urged a serious effort on biosequestration. Malcolm Turnbull began promoting soil carbon and particularly biochar early last year, and proposed that farmers be permitted to obtain credits under the CPRS for it on an opt-in basis.

The Government later agreed to that and it now forms part of the revised, Turnbull-era CPRS Bill reintroduced into Parliament on Tuesday. However, soil carbon has come under attack from left-wing environmental groups, who argue that its biosequestration potential is as yet unproven and that demand for products such as biochar will see biosequestration competing with food production as biofuels have, leading to higher food prices.

Critics say there is insufficient peer-reviewed evidence of the long-term stability of soil carbon, and that there is some evidence that no-till and biochar use actually reduce soil carbon levels. No-till cultivation also requires greater use of herbicides (and has been encouraged by agrimultinationals such as Monsanto for the reason), or organic farming methods, which mean significantly more expensive food.

Biochar has come under greater scrutiny. It is produced from biomass such as agricultural waste through a heating process that can also produce biofuels. Very fine black carbon is susceptible to blowing or draining away-one Canadian study showed 25% loss in the process of transporting and spreading, including photos of clouds of black carbon-a particularly intensive greenhouse contributor-blowing away during spreading. In many cases, composting the original waste material rather than turning it into biochar is more viable. It is the production of biochar that critics believe has the potential to drive up food prices.

Soil carbon credits also have no value under current international carbon trading rules, although as Tony Abbott has noted, that's a secondary issue if soil carbon delivers a genuine carbon sink-it removes CO2 from the atmosphere. But while objections to biosequestration seem mainly confined to the hairshirt elements of the environmental movement, there is broader agreement that accurate measurement of soil carbon needs to be resolved before it can be viable. The CSIRO last year started a multi-year project to address issues in soil carbon measurement and said yesterday much more research needed to be done.

Professor McBratney who has undertaken extensive work on the issue, believes these issues will take 2-3 years to resolve but says relatively accurate measurement of soil carbon levels can be obtained at reasonable cost and form the basis for paying farmers. However, he proposes some caveats-a payments system should be based on whole units-such as an entire farm-so that total net carbon loss or gain can be monitored, and it should include all carbon-he says soils also contain non-organic carbonate carbon, which can be lost through irrigation and therefore any system must be on a "net carbon" basis.

He also suggests payment systems be based on relatively conservative verification systems, and if farmers want to be paid more, they pay for more accurate testing. Soil carbon credits are available on the Chicago Climate Exchange, he says, but are worth less than $US1 due to the lack of independent verification and reliance on estimation rather than measurement. Professor McBratney also proposed farmers be paid an ongoing, rather than one-off, payment as an incentive to maintain soil carbon levels.

He would prefer to see a market-based mechanism, and believes $8-10 "won't cut it". "Increasing soil carbon levels requires greater production levels or addition of biomass. Adding a tonne of carbon to soil requires about 100 kilograms of nitrogen, and that either has to be purchased at about $1 per kilogram or produced via legumes, which need water." Professor McBratney thinks $20-40 a tonne is a more realistic but still conservative cost.

However, he says there is enormous potential for soil carbon sequestration and that Australia is probably the world leader with the most sophisticated public debate in the area. "You're not going to see anything for the next two or three years but by 2020, we should start to see a real difference. A reasonable aspiration is a 20% increase in soil carbon by 2020." That assumes our politicians managed to get the right incentives in place.

Single-desk carbon trade could earn billions: Flannery

Sydney Morning Herald
Friday 31/7/2009 Page: 5

THE former Australian of the year Tim Flannery has proposed a single Australian Government trading desk - similar to the former wheat desk - to sell carbon credits to the United States. The government-operated desk could ensure Australia up to 10% of the 1 billion tonnes of carbon offsets the US would buy offshore a year if legislation to establish a US emissions trading scheme passes the US Senate later this year, he said.

Mr Flannery backed the Coalition's proposed amendment to the Government's emissions trading scheme which would allow carbon credits to be created by farmers who store carbon in their soil. He said these would be the primary carbon credits sold to the US through his proposed trading desk.

Green carbon, such as biochar - a type of processed charcoal used to store carbon in soil - is not included in the Australian emissions trading scheme or any international agreements. Under the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme, Australian carbon credits can only be generated through revegetation of trees to avoid deforestation.

"The Government could then buy a certain amount of permits from farmers for carbon soil storage.., at, say, $15 a tonne and sell them on to the US at $20 through the desk," Mr Flannery said. "If we could get 10% of the US market at, say, $20 that would be about $2 billion a year coming into Australia and [would] help Australian farmers expand carbon storage projects."

Under the single-desk plan, government assessors would be sent to evaluate carbon storage to ensure they were legitimate projects before the Government could sell them. Mr Flannery's proposal would require Australia to lift a temporary ban on selling carbon credits internationally - except to New Zealand - currently included in the emissions trading legislation before Parliament, and require green carbon's inclusion in an international climate change agreement.

Mr Flannery recently returned from New Zealand where he proposed a similar idea to the country's climate minister. On Wednesday the Agriculture Minister, Tony Burke, cast doubt on the likelihood of biochar and other soil-based carbon storage being used to create permits in an Australian scheme.

Malcolm Turnbull, the Opposition Leader, said yesterday the Opposition would vote down the Government's emissions trading scheme when it came to the vote in the Senate next month unless the Government accepted nine broad changes to the policy outlined last week, including the inclusion of biochar.

But speaking to the Herald yesterday Mr Flannery hit out at the Liberal Party, saying the "rump" of climate sceptics in the party were marching it to electoral defeat based on a flawed climatechange policy. "That is just stupid and they need to move on... Malcolm is trying to move them on, though not as effectively as we would like to see," Mr Flannery said. "How stupid could you be? They will lose at least 20 seats if there is a double-dissolution election."

Reducing carbon could be a dirty job, but this farmer will do it

Age
Saturday 11/7/2009 Page: 9

SINCE abandoning chemical fertiliser for a natural formula, Darryn Smith has felt his soil soften, seen worms return and watched the veterinary bill for his 180 cattle fall dramatically. In his words, the ground at his Western District farm has gone "from dead to being alive".

What lie cannot see, but knows is happening beneath his toes, is a slow rise is the amount of carbon stored in his soil. And along with a growing number of farmers, lie would like to be compensated for reducing Australia's carbon footprint. "If they are going to pay people for carbon stored in trees, why not for grass?" lie says.

Soil carbon was thrust into the public debate in January, when Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull launched a broad and as yet undeveloped "green carbon" plan that he said could cut Australia's greenhouse gas emissions by 25%. This included not only boosting soil carbon, but investing in reforestation and biochar - effectively adding a form of charcoal to the soil.

There have been markedly different estimates about the sorts of cuts possible through these techniques. Some suggest it is equivalent to Australia's annual emissions. This is questionable. What is not disputed is that there is capacity to capture greenhouse gas by boosting photosynthesis in the 70% of viable fanning land estimated to have been degraded through clearing, burning and use of chemicals.

Among the boldest supporters of soil carbon is John White, an engineer turned co-owner of Ignite Energy Resources, which uses Gippsland brown coal in carbon enriching biological fertiliser.

He estimates that about 300 years' worth of Australia's annual emissions have been lost from the soil. "The faster we can activate all the 500 million hectares of cropping and grazing lands in Australia - and then all the areas in China and India and Africa and the Middle East - to be actually sucking the carbon dioxide down from the atmosphere, the better," he says.

Mr White, who lobbied Mr Turnbull to embrace soil carbon when he was environment minister, would like to see a radical overhaul of the Government's proposed emissions trading scheme to allow farmers to opt in and receive a fixed carbon price of $5 for every tonne stored.

The Government's position is that agriculture - responsible for about 16% of national emissions - will not be included in the scheme until 2015 at the earliest. In part, this is because it is seen as difficult to measure. Tony Lovell, co-founder of advocacy group Soil Carbon Australia, says that while more work is needed, the quality of measurement possible is better than most people realise.

"All of the emissions currently recognised under the Kyoto Protocol are traded on the basis of reasonable estimates that are supported by scientific data. This is the same," he says. "The market must be allowed to lead the science, not wait on it." The Greens say soil carbon has tremendous potential, but offer a note of caution. "Beware those who talk up soil carbon as a way of distracting attention from our coal and petrol emissions," Senator Christine Milne says. "If we are to deliver a safe climate to our children, we will need to cut pollution across the board."

Overseas, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation has called for agriculture to be factored into the climate treaty due to be signed in December. The Government has been accused of not doing enough to support soil carbon, but Agriculture Minister Tony Burke says Australia's climate negotiating strategy includes a "more easily tradeable commodity".

Burn, bury and bargain with it: biochar ticks the green boxes

Sydney Morning Herald
Saturday 30/5/2009 Page: 6

What unites Malcolm Turnbull, Tim Flannery and James Lovelock? Enthusiasm for biochar: one of the most intriguing solutions to global warming and a possible boon for investors. biochar, the charcoal-like residue when biomass (such as agricultural or council waste) undergoes Pyrolysis (combustion at 400-550 degrees, without oxygen), has the potential to pull large amounts of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

There is no commercial biochar production in Australia yet but there is palpable excitement; about 200 people attended a biochar conference on the Gold Coast last week. Others were turned away. According to Philip Sutton and David Spratt's Climate Code Red, published last year, when Joe Herbertson of sustainability consultancy Crucible Carbon first read about biochar technology "the hairs went up on the back of my neck. This is the best news on climate change I've ever heard."

Crucible Carbon is the unlisted, private company Malcolm Turnbull championed this year when launching his Green Carbon Initiative, saying biochar was a "win-win" for jobs, the environment and agriculture given its potential to absorb 100 million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year, or 20% of the country's total.

Heady stuff. Crucible Carbon is chaired and co-owned by Herbertson, a former head of BHP Billiton's corporate research labs in Newcastle. Crucible is developing its own Pyrolysis unit and is focusing on the potential to create renewable, baseload energy for regional towns - as well as saleable renewable energy certificates- from the biogas which is a byproduct of the process.

The company has received more than $300,000 of grant funding since it was founded in 2007 and is exploring opportunities to raise up to $12 million in early-stage capital - a combination of debt and equity is most likely- from wealthy individuals and trade partners. If successful, the money raised will fund development of a commercial- scale Pyrolysis unit, to generate about three MWs of electricity from 24,000 drytonnes of biomass, as well as 8000 tonnes of biochar - and a three-year payback for investors.

Crucible is also technology partner in the Rainbow Bee Eater project (named after the bird) in Western Australia's wheat belt, backed by a prominent farmer, Ian Stanley, and the WA Agriculture Department. The project aims to convert agricultural residues and woody crops into biochar and renewable energy. About $1.5 million has be en invested in the project over the past 18 months, by among others, listed miner Alumina Ltd, which is interested in offsetting its own emissions using biochar.

Alumina believes 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year could be stored using biochar by 2020. In January, its chief executive, John Bevan, said he was "not aware of any other potential large scale mitigation option that could continence capturing and storing carbon in this way within several years". Stanley says field trials applying biochar to wheat crops are already demonstrating the agricultural benefits.

It is just one example. Lukas van Zwieten, of the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Energy, helped organise last week's biochar conference and presented a paper showing the greatest potential market for biochar was as a soil amendment, valued at between $100 and $1000 a tonne.

That's a big range, which just shows it is early days. The char can be used to improve the efficiency of fertilisers and also can be a physical amendment to the soil. Its value depends heavily on the type of application - the type of biomass used as feedstock, the soil it is applied to, the crop being grown etc.

The department extrapolated from a one tenth scale trial to conclude that a Pyrolysis unit processing four dry tonnes an hour of waste from a chicken facility (mainly manure and sawdust) could yield 2.3 MWs an hour of electricity, saleable to the grid for $750,000 a year (assuming a price of $40/MWh). renewable energy certificates could be sold for another $1 million (assuming a price of $55 per MWh).

The unit would also produce 12,000 tonnes of biochar a year worth - this is the big part - up to $6.4 million based on the extra sweet corn and fava beans yielded after application of biochar in the department's trial. The productivity increase was substantial, almost double, in some cases. The trial used a Pyrolysis unit made by BEST Energies, the most established Australian company in the field.

BEST Energies is also raising money to build an $8 million-$10 million commercial-scale plant with backers including Transfield Services. The plant will turn green waste from Sydney councils into electricity and biochar.

BEST Energies director Adriana Downie told GBIZ the most exciting potential for biochar was to be "carbon negative" but the emissions trading schemes proposed in Australia were skewing the application of the technology towards renewable energy generation, because there was no recognition of the carbon sequestered using biochar. In Canberra this week, Downie pushed for recognition of carbon offsets using biochar under the draft carbon pollution reduction scheme, and in the position Australia's climate negotiators will take to next week's pre-Copenhagen meeting in Bonn.

The International Biochar Initiative is lobbying for the same thing globally. In an open letter to the initiative last year, Tim Flannery, the environmental campaigner and former Australian of the year, said biochar "may represent the single most important initiative for humanity's environmental future".

In a recent New Scientist interview, the British scientist and conservationist James Lovelock - after summarily dismissing the efficacy of carbon trading initiatives, renewable energy and carbon sequestration - was effusive: "There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal." "The biosphere pumped out 550 gigatons of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatons. 99% of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so."

"What we can do is get farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the father then ploughs into the field. A little carbon dioxide is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon." "This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it." But maybe we will.

Carbon hopes push case for charcoal

Australian
Wednesday 11/3/2009 Page: 35

Scientists are optimistic about the potential of biochar, writes Jill Rowbotham

Malcolm Turnbull's name will be blessed forever by many scientists and bio-business people after he thrust into the spotlight the technology that produces charcoal based fertiliser. As the Government battles to find acceptance for its emissions trading scheme, the Opposition Leader argues the Government's climate change effort came to a dead halt when it signed the Kyoto Protocol.

Prominent among his initiatives to cut Australia's annual 570 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions is revisiting the merits of carbon sequestration's poor relative, charcoal, also called biochar. Turnbull's most prominent pronouncements, which began in late January, have been greeted with jubilation by English geologist and naturalised Australian Chris Turney, who holds the chair of physical geography at the University of Exeter.

"We are seeing quite significant climate change already and the longer we wait [to act] the worse it will be," Turney says. We need to get something out there that will suck carbon out of the atmosphere. Now is the time." biochar is plant material or waste that has been smouldered; that is, reduced to ash by cooking at low heat, a process called slow Pyrolysis.

The method minimises carbon emissions (those produced can be used to fuel the plant), and maximises the all-important carbon capture; that is, retention of carbon within the material being treated. Applied to soil, biochar takes a staggeringly long time to degrade and release the carbon conservative estimates are hundreds of years and run to thousands and it enhances the ability of the soil to hang on to fertilisers applied with it.

In a world where biochar manufacture was widespread, for example, waste land would be reforested and the trees would suck in carbon as they grew. Forests reach a point where they emit as much carbon as they draw out, so to forestall that the trees would be felled as soon as mature and converted to biochar. The waste land would be replanted, establishing a virtuous cycle.

A giant leap forward for fast tracking the technology would be its inclusion on the list of carbon offsets recognised under Kyoto. Micronesia has requested the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change consider biochar as a fast-start strategy for mitigation. That puts it on the draft agenda for December's UNFCCC talks in Copenhagen.

Similarly, at home, there is not yet official recognition of biochar's potential. This is because bio-carbons are included in the federal Government's carbon pollution reduction scheme regime under agriculture, which is not going to be considered until 2015, so there is no incentive to manufacture it now.

Nevertheless, research in universities and at CSIRO continues apace and in 2006 the International Biochar Initiative was formed to support the cause. Its first international conference was held in Australia a year later. In October the Australian and New Zealand Biochar Researchers Network was launched and its website came online in January. The group's first get together, the Asia-Pacific Regional conference, will be held at Queensland Gold Coast in May.

Turney is a biochar booster, courtesy of his work on climate change. His credentials in that debate are well-established. His latest book, Ice, Mud and Blood: Lessons from Climates Past, published last year, boasts good reviews as well as a catchy title. In an era when good communicators are highly prized, he is run off his feet.

He is also a director of a new company called Carbonscape, which set up a microwave-powered kiln in Blenheim, in New Zealand's South Island, in October last year and has begun producing biochar commercially. Scientist and global warming activist Tim Flannery has just joined the board.

Turney's beef about the carbon sequestration debate is that while some technologies offer the promise of reducing new emissions, biochar use would take back from the atmosphere some of the 200 billion tonnes of carbon that have been accumulating there since the start of the industrial revolution. The stove the Carbonscape directors call the Black Phantom can fix up to one tonne of carbon a day.

Other local companies working to establish and popularise biochar include Best Energies, at Somersby on the Central Coast of NSW, and Crucible Carbon, in Newcastle, but you don't have to be on the commercial side to be a proponent.

James Cook University's Michael Bird, an environmental geochemist and Federation fellow, is a vocal proponent. "Imagine a simple, scaleable technology based on natural materials that can generate energy, sequester carbon, increase soil fertility and decrease nutrient run-off and that's the potential of biochar," Bird says.

When Bird talks about scaleability, he means the technology can be engineered for any size operation, from that of a single farmer to a large industrial plant. This ease of adaptability for multiple users and purposes is a great strength. Best Energies began operating its pilot plant at Somersby at the end of 2006, producing its version of biochar, Agrichar, and has collaborated on trials with the NSW Department of Primary Industries. Bird is impressed with this progress.

"A few months ago I wrote to the Queensland Premier saying NSW is way ahead of the game in biochar, and we should be doing something too," he says. Already demand for the company's product from university laboratories outstrips supply. Technical manager Adriana Downie says the company is ready for large-scale commercial trials but lacks a backer. Despite being owned by a US-based

consortium, it needs new sources of finance. "We have done a lot in proving the technology," Downie says. "Now we need a commercial scale Pyrolysis plant to demonstrate the technology on that level." There is plenty more to know about biochar, including that it is not a homogenous product and not all biochars will benefit all soils.

Results will vary depending on feedstocks and the soils into which they are tilled. "biochar is a broad term, ranging from stuff that's mainly still plants to the fine stuff," Bird says. There is range of Agrichars. For example, one is made from council green waste and a healthy dollop of what is politely called biosolids, sewerage sludge.

Other research, being undertaken by University of New South Wales visiting professor Stephen Joseph with Paul Munroe funded by Joseph's US backed company Anthroterra, is looking for a way to produce a mix of biomass, such as green waste and manure, with clay and minerals. This is heated at low temperatures via a process called torrefaction. "I had a gut feeling I could do it at even lower temperatures than Pyrolysis, and if you can do it at low temperatures with waste heat all the costs come down," Joseph says.

Joseph founded the forerunner to Best Energies and sold out 3 1/2 years ago. He is also vice-chairman of the IBI. He and eminent soil biogeochemist Johannes Lehmann, of Cornell University, have co-edited a new book, biochar for Environmental Management, which will be published next month.

Lehmann is a world leader in the study of the highly fertile soils found in sites of pre-Columbian Indian occupation in the Amazon. Called terra preta, dark earth, they contain much more carbon than the soils around them. They are partly composed of a charcoal-like substance, giving rise to the theory the ancients were engaged in deliberately fertilising the ground.

Now scientists hope to work out how they did it. "It's not just the fact that we are fixing carbon at one level you could take carbon and put it back in the coalmines but you can put it back into the soil," Turney says. "All over the world soils are relatively impoverished, so that's what's rather nice, that you can get these other benefits as well." But the main game is saving the atmosphere. Turney hammers the urgent theme: "We have have to buy ourselves some time and get carbon levels down."

Garnaut dismisses calls for delay

Age
Wednesday 4/3/2009 Page: 5

THE Federal Government's former adviser on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut, has rejected calls from business groups to delay the start of an emissions trading scheme. That is despite Professor Garnaut still having reservations about the design of the government's carbon cap-and-trade program, including its 2020 emissions reduction target of 15% on 2000 levels if there is a global agreement. "I think there are lots of advantages of bedding our system down (by 2010) so that business is comfortable with it," Professor Garnaut said.

"Then business will know how it works ahead of a time when it starts having to carry a heavier load after 2012, when we must play our full part in what we hope will be a strong global agreement." Last week the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry called on the government to delay the scheme until 2012 to offset the effects of the global financial crisis.

Professor Garnaut was speaking at an Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics conference in Canberra yesterday discussing the issues surrounding the agriculture sector's inclusion in an emissions trading scheme, which he said should occur "as soon as possible." Currently a decision on agriculture's inclusion in the scheme has been deferred by the Federal Government until 2013, for a possible full inclusion in 2015.

But federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said there were still a number of issues relating to agriculture's inclusion, especially monitoring, and the Government had not yet committed to a decision either way. Mr Burke extended one conciliatory offer to the sector yesterday, pledging $32 million in research money for biochar production, a program strongly supported by the Federal Opposition.

Carbon control gives crops a helping hand

Adelaide Advertiser
Wednesday 4/2/2009 Page: 31

FARMERS and climate scientists are excited by the potential of "biochar", a type of charcoal, to store carbon in soil and boost crop production at the same time. The high-quality form of charcoal is left over from the production of renewable energy from biomass - woody plant material and other forms of organic waste otherwise sent to landfill.

Former Australian of the Year and environmental scientist Professor Tim Flannery says biochar offers a "unique, powerful solution .. it allows us to address food security, the fuel crisis and the climate problem, and all in an immensely practical manner".

Biochar is a win-win for the climate and for Australian farmers, who often have to contend with poor soils, says CSIRO senior research scientist Dr Evelyn Krull. "If you apply it to very degraded soils like we have in Australia here, preliminary research has shown it actually increases soil fertility," she said.

Dr Krull has funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation to start field testing at Urrbrae. A review of published literature has shown the potential to trap and store carbon in the soil, boost crop yields, retain water and reduce the need for chemical fertilisers.

Biochar is made by heating biomass in the absence of oxygen to capture gases that can be used to produce heat and power. Carbon returned to soil as biochar can be effectively locked away from the atmosphere for hundreds to thousands of years.

Scientist "turns up the heat with new alert on warming

Age
Tuesday 8/4/2008 Page: 10

A LEADING climate scientist says the European Union and international partners must urgently rethink targets for cutting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of fears they have grossly, underestimated the scale of the problem. Dr James Hansen, head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, calls for a sharp reduction in carbon dioxide limits.

Dr Hansen said the EU target of 550 parts per million of carbon dioxide the most stringent in the world - should be slashed to 350 ppm. He said the cut was, if "humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilisation developed." A final version of the paper Dr Hansen co-wrote with eight other climate scientists has been posted on the Archive website.

Instead of using theoretical models to estimate the sensitivity of the climate, the team used evidence from Earth's history, which they contend gives a much more accurate picture. They studied cores taken from the bottom of the ocean, which indicate carbon dioxide levels millions of years ago. They show that when the world began to glaciate at the start of the ice age around 35 million years ago, the concentration of carbon dioxide was about 450 ppm.

"If you leave us at 450 ppm for long enough, it will probably melt all the ice - that's a sea rise of 75 metres," Dr Hansen said. "What we have found "is that the target we have all been aiming for is a disaster a guaranteed disaster." At levels as high as 550 ppm the world would warm by 6 degrees, the scientists' paper said. Previous estimates had suggested warming would be just 3 degrees at that point.

Dr Hansen has long been a controversial figure in climate change science. He was one of the first to bring the crisis to the world attention in testimony to the US Congress in the 1980s. His relationship with the Bush Administration has been frosty. In 2005, he accused the White House and NASA administrators of trying to censor him.

He has steadily revised his analysis of the scale of the global warming problem and was one of the architects of a 450 ppm target. But he said: "I realise that was too high." The revised target is likely to prompt criticism that he is setting the bar unrealistically high. Dr Hansen said he now regarded as implausible the view of many climate scientists that the shrinking of the ice sheets will take thousands of years.

If we follow business as usual, I can't see how west Antarctica could survive a century," he said. "We are talking about a sea-level rise of at least a couple of metres this century." Dr Hansen said his findings were not a recipe for despair. The good news, he said, was that reserves of fossil fuels. had been greatly exaggerated, so an alternative source of energy would have to be put in place rapidly in any case.

He proposed a range of measures. A moratorium on coal power stations would bring carbon dioxide levels to below 400 ppm. Reforestation coupled with innovative agricultural methods such as the use of Biochar, a form of biomass charcoal that can store carbon in the soil, could then get closer to his new 350 ppm target.

Dr Hansen's new position will pile more pressure on the British Government over plans to build a new generation of coal power stations. Last year he wrote to Prime Minister Gordon Brown urging him to block the first such power station. The London-based Royal Society made similar protestations to Britain's Business Secretary, John Hutton, last week.

Charcoal may hold key to boosting soil and output

Countryman
Thursday 6/3/2008 Page: 48

Want to grow more wheat with less fertiliser, in a drier climate and get a bonus for carbon credits at the same time? It seems like pie-in-the sky, but it may be on the cards if trials using charcoal as a soil amendment fulfill their early promise. Biochar is fine-grained porous charcoal, made from wood or any biological material (even manure) that has been pyrolised (heated without oxygen to about 450 degrees C) so that mainly carbon is left.

Pyrolysis produces a net surplus of energy that can be used to generate electricity as at the Verve integrated wood processing demonstration plant at Narrogin. Biomass growth followed by Pyrolysis it is one of the few energy production systems that are carbon negative (they extract CO2 from the air). Others such as wind power or solar energy are carbon neutral at best. *

Biochar has some interesting attributes: it lasts a long time in the soil, it absorbs and slowly releases water and nutrients to plants, reduces soil acidity and provides a safe home for beneficial soil organisms. What is more, it is relatively cheap to produce. Biochar is also very stable in the soil. Researchers think biochar contributed many years ago to the dark fertile terra preta soils of the Amazon basin and the chernozems of Russia and the Ukraine. Chernozems are a very black topsoil, rich in humus, typical of cool to temperate semiarid regions, such as the grasslands of European Russia.

If you grow oil mallees, harvest them, extract the valuable cineol-rich oil by steam distillation and pyrolyse the residue you get biochar. Biochar contains around half of the biomass carbon in the oil mallees. The net result is you have removed large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. When carbon trading arrives in Australia, biochar is worth money because businesses that emit excess carbon dioxide will have to purchase carbon credits to make up the difference.

Biochar effectively sequesters large amounts of atmospheric carbon, creating carbon credits. WA has the capacity to produce more than nine million tonnes of biochar a year. Once the biochar has been produced you could store it as sequestered carbon and make money from the carbon credits, or you could use it as a soil amendment.

Dr BlackWell, soil research officer with the WADAF, said trials at Pindar and Kalannie had shown increased returns from wheat of up to $96/ha, especially when biochar was applied with mineral fertilisers and inoculated with beneficial soil micro-organisms. "The results were mainly driven by water supply," he said. "The wheat was planted on 60cm wide rows. It is very early days to make predictions about the effect of soil charcoal on yield." In the trial the DAF applied 2-3 tonnes/ha of biochar deep banded in an acid sandy clay loam through an airseeder, before break of season.

When wheat was sown using the same tramlines, arbuscular mycorrhiza (AM) tripled their colonisation of wheat roots. In infertile soils AM live symbiotically with plant roots, harvesting nutrients such as phosphorus and zinc. In return they receive carbohydrate from the host plant. However, in fertile soils AM may tend to act parasitically. Charcoal also appeared to make wheat more drought-tolerant, possibly because the AM reduced drought stress.

Mr Kerkman's autosteer system allows him to place his wheat seeds within two centimetres of the biochar. "It will give rise to a new sustainable farming industry," he said. "Charcoal increases yields 5-10 per cent and reduces fertiliser needs by 40 per cent." "You need charcoal to tame the vicious soils of Australia, and if we can use charcoal we could be paid to do it," said Mike.

The problem is getting the initial investment to build a carboniser. Mr Kerkmans estimated a capital cost of $6.5m for the plant. "We also need a carbon-emitting company to pay farmers for carbon credits," he said. Dr BlackWell said much more research was needed on the long-term effects of incorporating biochar as a soil amendment in different soils and climates. Moreover, costs of manufacturing and applying charcoal and any carbon credit benefits were at present unknown. "I don't want people to get excited about the results and then be disappointed," he said.

* This is incorrect. Once a solar panel or wind turbine has produced energy exceeding the amount used in its construction, it is clearly carbon negative. Blair.