Carbon sequestration for everybody: decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide, earn money and improve the soil
Folke Gunther, Submitted to Energy and Environment, 2007-03-27

Summary:
The easiest way to sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide is to convert plant biomass into charcoal
and bury it in agricultural land. Doing this will open a new way for farmers and laymen to earn
money (from carbon sequestration funds) and improve land fertility. It is also a way to avoid
nutrient loss from land to sea.March 27, 2007

See attached

Carbon dioxide, deciding for our future
Folke Günther, Holon Ecosystem Consultants, Lund, Sweden, February 26, 2008

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I am also trying to describe the benefits of buried charcoal to counteract the ‘carbon dioxide cloud’ (see my blog), why I am not the least surprised of the reaction of ignorance on he issue. I have been around here in Sweden, trying to lift the mental fog, and have been met with the same surprised skepticism (..if that is so good, why have nobody done it before?)
However, seen from the other side, Lester Brown is quite right. Diminishing the carbon dioxide emissions by 80% to 2020 is just about right (to abot 1 Gt/year). But it must be combined with a massive sequestration (to about 2 Gt annually) ,thus creating a net diminishing of the ‘carbon cloud’ by about 1 Gt per year . For further details, see my blog.

Download the ppt- presentation that seems to be rather clarifying. The drawback is that if takes about one hour to convince a person with it.
FG
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Folke Günther
Kollegievägen 19
224 73 Lund, Sweden
home/office: +46 46 14 14 29
cell: 0709 710306 skype: folkegun
Homepage: http://www.holon.se/folke
blog: http://folkegunther.blogspot.com/
folke@holon.se

Also by Folke Gunther, "Carbon sequestration for everybody: decrease atmospheric carbon dioxide, earn money and improve the soil," March 27, 2007, attached.

The Charcoal Vision: Producing Bioenergy while Simultaneously Enhancing Soil and Water Quality and Permanently Sequestering Carbon
David Laird, Science Magazine, August 30, 2007

Interpretive Summary: The US is rapidly pursuing development of a cellulosic ethanol industry. This strategy is of concern to agricultural scientists, farmers, and conservationists because harvesting biomass crops will have an adverse impact on soil and water quality. This report describes the Charcoal Vision, which is a scenario for processing biomass by pyrolysis to generate bio-oil and charcoal. The bio-oil could be used to offset fossil fuel oil and the charcoal could be returned to the soil from which the biomass was harvested. Returning the charcoal co-product of pyrolysis to the soil is anticipated to build soil quality, increase agricultural productivity, and improve water quality. National deployment of the Charcoal Vision could generate enough bio-oil to meet 25% of the current US consumption of fossil fuel oil. The scenario would simultaneously reduce net US emissions of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere by about 10%. This report will help policy makers develop strategies that simultenously benefit energy security, global change, environmental quality, and rural economies.

Technical Abstract: Processing biomass through a distributed network of fast pyrolyzers has many advantages relative to the cellulosic ethanol platform. Fast pyrolyzers thermally transform biomass into bio-oil, syngas, and charcoal. The syngas can be used to provide the energy needs of the pyrolyzer. Bio-oil is an energy raw material (17.0 MJ/kg) that can be burned to generate heat or electricity or shipped to a refinery for processing into transportation fuels. Charcoal should be returning the charcoal to the soils from which the biomass was harvested. Application of charcoal to soils is hypothesized to do several positive things for soils, including; supply nutrients, increase bioavailable water, build soil organic matter, enhance nutrient cycling, lower the bulk density, and act as a liming agent. Application of charcoal to soils is also anticipated to reduce the leaching of pesticides and nutrients to surface and ground water. The half-life of carbon (C) in soil charcoal is in excess of 1,000 years. This means that soil-applied charcoal will make both a lasting contribution to soil quality and the C in the charcoal will be removed from the atmosphere and sequestered in the soil for millennia. Assuming the U.S. can annually produce 1.1x10^9 Mg of biomass from harvestable forest and crop lands, then, national implementation of the Charcoal Vision would generate enough bio-oil to displace 1.91 billion barrels of fossil fuel oil per year or about 25% of the current U.S. annual oil consumption and thus offset 234 Tg of fossil fuel C emissions to the atmosphere per year. Furthermore, assuming that fixed C in the char is not biologically degraded, application of char to soils would sequester 139 Tg of C per year. The combined C credit for fossil fuel displacement and permanent sequestration, 373 Tg per year, is 10% of the average annual U.S. emissions of CO2-C.

Comment to bioenergy with carbon storage (BECS)
Christoph Steiner, to the Terra Preta Discussion List, November 8, 2007


Carbon-negative bioenergy to cut global warming could drive deforestation:
An interview on BECS with Biopact’s Laurens Rademakers Mongabay.com (November 6, 2007) http://news.mongabay.com/2007/1106-carbon-negative_becs.html


The article on mongabay.com deals about a proposed mechanism for generating carbon-negative bioenergy. Bioenergy with carbon storage (BECS) holds out the prospect of reducing CO2 from the atmosphere while producing carbon-negative energy. The article provides an informative introduction on how “carbon-negativity” is feasible and assumes geosequestration (developed from the “clean coal” industry,
CO2 capture in depleted oil and gas fields, saline aquifers etc.) as the sequestering tool. Laurens Rademakers delineates the risks such as deforestation of tropical rainforests and leakage of geosequestration. In addition these technologies require vast capital inputs and large scale projects.


A substantive difference of bio-energy to fossil-energy allows Charcoal Carbon Capture!
Geosequestration and carbon capture technologies are currently being developed by the coal industry in order to produce the so-called “clean coal”. Using this technology, the coal industry can at best reduce its CO2 emissions, while using re-growing biomass would establish a carbon sink. This substantive difference allows bio-energy (energy from re-growing biomass) production systems to apply yet another way to capture carbon – Charcoal Carbon Sequestration! Bio-energy with charcoal carbon sequestration (BECCS) would only capture a maximum of 50% of the carbon stored in the biomass but offers the following
advantages:


1)Decentralized and small scale projects are feasible


2)Large capital investments are not necessary. The technologies range from small cooking stoves to large bioenergy production units. No carbon capture technology is necessary as charcoal is a byproduct of gasification. As price for the incomplete gasification a proportion of the energy (geosequestration demands energy too) is invested to capture carbon in charcoal


3) Biochar (Charcoal used as soil amendment) increases soil fertility and sustainability (important for continuous cropping for energy or food
crops)


4) No risk of harmful CO2 leakage as in systems like geosequestration.
Most scientists agree that the half life of charcoal is in the range of centuries or millennia.


5) Only re-growing resources can establish a carbon sink. Tropical Rainforest is not considered as re-growing resource in a BECCS scenario.


An access to the C trade market holds out the prospect to reduce deforestation of primary forest, because using intact primary forest would reduce the C credits. The estimated above-ground biomass of unlogged forests is around 400 Mg ha 1, about half of which is C. This C is lost at a high percentage if used for gasification and only < 50% is captured by BECCS. The C trade could provide an incentive to cease further deforestation; instead reforestation and recuperation of degraded land for fuel and food crops would gain magnitude.

Carbon Sequestration by Carbonization of Biomass and Forestation: Three Case Studies
Makoto Ogawa,Yasuyuki Okimori, Fumio Takahashi, Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Volume 11, Number 2, March 2006 , pp. 421-436(16)
Publisher: Springer


Abstract:
We proposed the carbon sink project called “Carbon Sequestration by Forestation and Carbonization (CFC),” which involves biomass utilization and land conservation by incorporating the products of biomass carbonization into the agents for soil improvement, water purification, etc. Our purpose was to demonstrate the potential of the CFC scheme for carbon sequestration, particularly carbon storage in soil.


Case studies were conducted in both developing and developed countries.


1. In southern Sumatra, Indonesia, 88,369 Mg-C year−1 of wood residue from a plantation forest and excess bark from a pulp mill would be converted into 15,571 Mg-C year−1 of the net carbon sink by biochar for soil improvement. The fixed carbon recovery of the system is 21.0%.


2. In a semiarid region in western Australia, the carbonization of wood residue was incorporated with multipurpose projects of a mallee eucalyptus plantation that involved the function of salinity prevention. During the project period of 35 years, the total carbon sink would reach 1,035,450 Mg-C with 14.0% by aboveground biomass, 33.1% by belowground biomass and 52.8% by biochar in soil.


3. In southern Kyushu, Japan, the study was focused on the effective use of surplus heat from a garbage incinerator for carbonizing woody materials. Sawdust of 936.0 Mg-C year−1 would be converted into the net carbon sink of 298.5 Mg-C year−1 by carbonization, with the fixed carbon recovery of the system being 31.9%.


Consequently, the CFC project could encourage the creation of a carbon sink in soil. However, we recognize that the quality standard of biochar, the stability of biochar in soil, and the methods for monitoring biochar utilization must be clarified before incorporating biochar carbon into the carbon credit system.


Keywords: biochar; biomass utilization; carbonization; carbon sequestration; carbon sink


Document Type: Research article
DOI: 10.1007/s11027-005-9007-4
Affiliations: Email: okimori_yasuyuki@kanso.co.jp

Rethinking biochar Will amending soil with charcoal make it more fertile and combat global warming?
Environmental Science and Technology, Technology News, August 1, 2007

NETL Carbon Sequestration Video
NETL,USDOE, YouTube July 2007

Current sequestration costs are in the range of 1-$300/ton of carbon emissions avoided. The goal is to reduce the cost of carbon sequestration to $10 or less by 2015.

NETL Carbon Sequestration

The U.S. Dept. of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory profiles a research program to capture and sequester Carbon Dioxide in underground rock formations.

Bio-energy in the Black
Johannes Lehmann, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, 2007

Amazing Carboni: Managing the Carbon Cycle, Katanning, Western Australia (21-22 March 2007)
Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme (ASCAS)i www.amazingcarbon.com

WORKSHOP PAPERS

Ray O’Grady Importance of Soil Carbon

Crucible Carbon to Australian Task Group on Emissions Trading Issues
Joe Herbertson, Les Strezov, Peter Burgess Crucible Carbon,Toront, NSW March 7, 2007

7 March 2007

Task Group on Emissions Trading Secretariat
Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet

Dear Secretariat,
Mega Tonnage Carbon Capture & Sequestration by Chars in Soils and its place in the Design of Australia’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)