BIOCHAR COULD REDUCE GREEN HOUSE GAS EMISSIONS BY UP TO 12% - IF DONE PROPERLY, NEW RESEARCH SHOWS

A mate of mine is the lead author on a recent Publication in Nature Communications on Biochar. Fair Play Dom!

Here's a longer version of a piece I wrote for the Examiner on it, in my weekly Organic Diary (every Thursday)

Is there a way for farms to be fertilized and to reduce farming's Green House Gas emissions at the same time? The principles and practices of organic farming, such as the use of clover for nitrogen fixing, are no doubt helpful in highlighting the options and opportunities for conventional farming.

There may now also be another option. According to new research, just published by a team of international scientists in the journal Nature, a substance which can be made from farm waste could reduce the world's greenhouse emissions by up to 12 per cent.

The scientists writing in the journal Nature say "Biochar" is a fine charcoal that can store carbon while helping to improve soil.

Biochar is made by decomposing biomass like plants, wood and other organic materials at high temperature in a process called slow pyrolysis.

"Biochar offers one of the few ways we can create power while decreasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. And it improves food production in the world's poorest regions by increasing soil fertility. It's an amazing tool," said Jim Amonette, a soil chemist at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Some of the specific benefits of biochar include the fact that it can take carbon and store it for hundreds of years, as well as: improve the soil's functioning (water retention and nutrient levels), decrease nitrous oxide and methane emissions from the soil into which it is tilled, and produce some bio-based gas and oil during pyrolysis.

It is also one of the few substances that can disrupt the Carbon Dioxide cycle, as it releases oxygen from the Cycle as did coal in its formation millions of years ago.

Interestingly, the researchers looked to the world's sources of biomass that aren't already being used by humans as food. So they looked at waste crop leaves, stalks and rice husks, livestock manure and yard trimmings.

Lead author Dominic Woolf's abstract for the article states that the reductions of 12% of current anthropogenic CO2_C equivalent emissions can be achieved "without endangering food security, habitat or soil conservation".

According to a detailed Science Daily report on the study:

"The researchers then calculated the carbon content of that biomass and how much of each source could realistically be used for biochar production.

With this information, they developed a mathematical model that could account for three possible scenarios. In one, the maximum possible amount of biochar was made by using all sustainably available biomass....

"the maximum scenario could offset up to the equivalent of 1.8 petagrams -- or 1.8 billion metric tons -- of carbon emissions annually and a total of 130 billion metric tons throughout in the first 100 years. Avoided emissions include the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

The estimated annual maximum offset is 12 percent of the 15.4 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions that human activity adds to the atmosphere each year.....

Adding biochar to the most infertile cropland would offset greenhouse gases by 60 percent more than if bioenergy were made using the same amount of biomass from that location, the researchers found."

The origins of Biochar are in South America. Before settlers arrived, agricultural waste was smouldered by the farming inhabitants to help with soil fertility. This involved covering burning biomass with soil and then letting it smoulder. This process was labelled Terra Preta, or Terra Pretta de Indio by the European settlers who arrived.

This soil is still today more fertile and indeed dark (from the charcoal) than surrounding soils.

As with all supposed magic bullet solutions to climate change, there are pros and cons. Most who query biochar's potential, and indeed many undecided experts, see it as a small part of a multi-strand solution.

Even in this, it is acknowledged that only with careful management of its potential, can it emerge as a positive:

"Using biochar to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at these levels is an ambitious project that requires significant commitments from the general public and government. We will need to change the way we value the carbon in biomass," according to Jim Amonette.

This latter point is the key. While Biochar can work, throwing it to the wolves of global carbon trading could lead to a very messy situation, full of unintended consequences.

Critics worry about plantations to produce biochar displacing forestry: anything from 200 million to over a billion hectares have been suggested. This would replace existing forest, Savannah and woodlands with biochar plantations.

Ironically people who currently use these, in western terms, uneconomical lands, also produce hardly any Green House Gases.

Massive commercial tree plantations have, all over the world, been shown to be environmentally destructive in a myriad of ways, from soil erosion to pesticide run off.

There are also examples where biochar has been shown to suppress rather than improve plant growth, and also stimulate bacterias which cause other types of climate change anyway.

Of course, it doesn't have to be like this. Biochar can simply be a case of baby steps in the right direction, using farm wastes that would otherwise be costly to treat and climate change causing if left untreated.

Here in Ireland, FEASTA (the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability) have been engaged in a Department of Environment funded multi agency initiative to examine carbon cycles and sinks. Research into biochar for arable farming has been part of this.

The journal article reference: Dominic Woolf, James E. Amonette, F. Alayne Street-Perrott, Johannes Lehmann, Stephen Joseph. Sustainable biochar to mitigate global climate change. Nature Communications, Aug. 10, 2010)

For more see feasta's Carbon Sinks and Cycles site

International Energy Agency and oil: How much is left, and what are the alternatives, part 1

The International Energy Agency (IEA) report, issued on Tuesday, makes for grim reading. The report is used by governments all over the world to set energy policy.

Business as usual would put the planet on track for a 6 degree rise in global temperatures.

The report demonstrates that containing climate change is possible but will require �a profound transformation of the energy sector.�

Keeping Co2 levels in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm), which many experts feel will only give the planet a 50-50 chance of avoiding runaway climate change, will require �a profound transformation of the energy sector� according to the IEA.

�To achieve this scenario, fossil-fuel demand would need to peak by 2020 and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to fall to 26.4 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2030 from 28.8 Gt in 2007� according to the IEA

Two of the main challenges include increased demand from China and India, as well as lack of investment in renewables and efficiencies due to the downturn.

Current oil producers also face losses of many trillions of dollars if global agreement can be reached on aiming for a limit of 450 ppm.

The small rises in supplies of "non-conventional oil", such as the tar sands of Canada, involve extreme climate polluting extraction methods.

Even nuclear, often lauded as carbon neutral, is not. The drilling, blasting, excavating, separating and transporting of uranium is not taken into account by western governments in their own figures.

It has been reported that the Namibian government plans to build a coal fired power plant to provide electricity for its uranium mines, due to increased UK demand. This could produce more than 10 million tonnes of Co2 a year, while also draining resources such as water and producing huge mountains of nuclear waste, waste which remains problematic far into the future.

Coping with nuclear waste for millennia, in a world with no fossil fuels, will be interesting to say the least.

Alarming and all as it was, some of the IEA's thunder was stolen by a whistleblower, as reported in the Guardian on Monday.

This person, described as a senior official with the IEA, claimed that the IEA has been exaggerating the amount of oil left due to US pressure. This then prompted the IEA to publish more details on the figures.

However even the figures themselves are worrying. Fields yet to be developed and even yet to be found make the situation look better than it otherwise is.

What are the implications for Ireland? How ready is Ireland for a oil shortage? See next posting.

climate change and farming in Ireland: part 2

photo by: Mariah gale, licienced under creative commons

In November, Minister for the Environment John Gormley said that �all sectors will have to cut emissions�. According to Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Brendan Smith TD, �making significant cuts from agriculture will be very difficult�.

He warned against �significant downward pressure on animal numbers, something that would �in a global context make no sense�.

The Minister said that if Ireland was to reduce cattle numbers, the global climate change situation would actually be worsened because "Irish beef would simply be replaced on world markets by beef produced in a much less sustainable way".

This point of carbon leakage has been raised in many quarters. Essentially the suggestion is that if we stop producing, other less sustainable regions in the world will instead. This will increase rather than decrease overall GHG emissions.
Department of Environment representative, when queried, claimed that �there is no confusion between this Department and the Department of Agriculture on greenhouse gas emissions from the agriculture sector.�

Simple and straightforward. And yet, there since the EU targets were agreed, there has been a rumbling on going discussion on footing the GHG bill. Enough to remind one of Queen Gertrude's most famous line: 'The lady doth protest too much, methinks'.

What has been dubbed the 'cow tax memo' suggested, according to reports, that �imposing a levy on all livestock is the best way to avoid having to cut the size of the national herd�.

This memo proposes a levy set at �5 per tonne of CO2 emitted, to generate just over �100 million. This has been reported as an equivalence of a levy of �13 for each dairy cow, �7 for non diary cow, �1 for sheep.

Minister Brendan Smith and even the EU commission have all come out railing against the possibility of this cow tax.

According to former Green Party leader, Minister of State Trevor Sargent, who's brief also includes cattle breeding, �A myth has been peddled however claiming Minister for the Environment and Local Government John Gormley T.D. is in favour of a cattle cull to reduce methane emissions. This is completely untrue and is a gross disservice to the work Minister Gormley has been doing to help the long term viability of all sectors, including agriculture�.

He points to two crucial areas his colleague has achieved for Ireland and agriculture with regard to climate change: In the European climate change deal agreed before Christmas, �Minister Gormley ... achieved flexibility in the deal to ensure that Ireland did not face higher costs of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and that we would not be forced to reduce our national herd�.

Gormley �also met with the European Presidency�s chief climate change negotiator, and was successful in having carbon leakage placed onto the agenda for future climate change negotiations�.

Just how much agriculture should pay is an altogether more interesting question in a contracting economy.

While demand for higher end food products may reduce abroad, it is likely that agriculture, which already provides 32% of net foreign earnings, will become more prominent in the future. Ireland have various practical advantages in producing food (e.g. climate, access to markets) which do not pertain in most other economic sectors.

According to Dr Mary Kelly of the EPA �The profile of greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland is unusual in the European context, with agriculture currently accounting for 27 per cent of all emissions and 40 per cent of emissions in the non-trading sector. This makes it very difficult to effect actual reductions on the scale required in the non-trading sector�.

The Koyoto targets, it seems, might be reachable due to recession. However the EU targets will prove far more difficult. Climate change experts have predicted that Ireland's' emissions will be down by between 5 and 9% in 2009, because of the recession.

Frank Convery, professor of environmental policy at University College Dublin, was reported recently as saying that Ireland's emissions may well be as close to the 63 million tonnes permitted under Koyoto. This would save the government E300 million in the purchase of carbon credits.

A recent EPA report, issued in March of this year, considers different scenarios, including that of economic shock until 2010 � decline by 7% each year until 2010, and then growth until 2020.

According to the EPA report, irrespective of economic performance, there is only one scenario for agricultural emission projections:

�Emissions are projected to decrease by 4% over the period 2007 � 2020 to 17.8 Mtonnes of CO2e.� This estimate was actually 18.95 Mtonnes in 2008, so agriculture is performing even better than just last year's predictions from the EPA itself. Agriculture in 1990 accounted for 35% of emissions.

Individual sectors performance within agriculture underscore this fact: According to Dr Gerry Boyle of Teagasc �Technological advances in dairy production, for example, have led to a drop of 12.4% in the amount of methane produced per kg of milk between 1990 and 2006�.

Most GHG emissions from Irish agriculture are methane from livestock and nitrous oxide from soils.

Specific measures under the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS) �are expected to raise awareness amongst farmers of the need to address climate change and also to promote greater acceptance and uptake of technologies that contribute to greenhouse gas abatement, such as use of minimum tillage and the adoption of low emission trailing shoe technology for slurry spreading� a DAFF spokesperson said, when queried.

Other abatement strategies include: dietary modifications, additives or probiotics to reduce methane production, breed selection, increasing the length of the grazing season and breeding more efficient animals.

The spokesperson also pointed out that the nitrates directive had resulted in �better use of nutrients with consequently less nitrogen application and therefore fewer nitrous oxide emissions�. This includes matching nitrogen use to soil type, increasing clover use on farms, use of nitrate inhibitors�.

It was also suggested that �in terms of reduced fertiliser use and consequent emissions, organic farming will also have a role to play and is supported through the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Food's Organic Farming Scheme.�

Forestry and energy crops are also relevant. To encourage energy crop cultivation, the National Energy Crop Premium (E80 per hectare) was introduced in 2007 to supplement the EU Premium of E45 per hectare.

A new Bioenergy Scheme was also launched offering establishment grants worth E1,450 per hectare to plant willow and miscanthus. Land planted with energy crops can also benefit under the Single Payment Scheme as well as REPS and the Disadvantaged Areas Scheme, subject to some restrictions on the areas planted.

The main issue from a farming perspective is, according to Gerry Boyle, �Gaining credits for afforestation and biomass production for bioenergy is problematic�. However, �there is no basis in logic for the agricultural sector not benefiting in accessing these offsets given that it is farmers that will need to alter their land use practices�.

However, there are other laggard areas. Gary Lanigan is a Teagasc research officer based in Johnstown Castle. His area of speciality is emissions, including GHG emissions, and soil carbon content.

According to Lanigan, while fertilizer usage is down down 20-25% from 1998, and while sheep and cattle numbers are down too, he estimates that �Only about 1% of farmers are using clover�.

Considering the numerous cost and environmental benefits, this is an astounding figure.

There are many considerations in the debate on GHG emissions. A complete and comprehensive life cycle analysis might skew all the figures again: While the application of fertilizer produces GHGs, so to does the making of fertilizers.

A nagging worry of course is the possibility that the scale of the problem and the scope of the solutions simply do not match up.

In the meantime, matching efficiencies and emissions, and seeing opportunities in the constraints may help agriculture move forward sustainably.

farming's future sustainability

Here's an interview I did with Richard Douthwaite (right) of FEASTA. It appeared in last week's Farming Examiner as the front page and centre page spread.

Oliver Moore: Can you outline the overall situation with regard to the sustainability of farming, as you see it Richard?

Richard Douthwaite: Modern industrialised farming, particularly tillage, has been described as a way of converting fossil energy into food energy. There�s a lot of energy used in the application of fertilizer, in tractors, in sprays, then in packing and getting the food to the customer. The whole process is not sustainable. In traditional forms of farming, it took 4 units of energy to produce each unit of energy in food. Most of that energy was directly from the sun, and all from renewable sources. Now there are 40 units of energy going into the production of food in the Europe, and perhaps up to 90 in the US. Most of that is from fossil fuels. That can�t continue.

OM: Within this broad picture, what is the key problem?

RD: The problem is that we�re not recycling the nutrients. Quite a lot of the nitrogenous fertilizer breaks down in the soil and becomes nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG), and one of the main sources of GHGs in farming. A lot of energy is used in the production of those nitrogenous fertilizers and most of it is wasted because the nitrogen is not taken up by the plants. There's more waste when the crops leave the farm because the nutrients they contain aren�t recycled: There�s nitrogen in the proteins that go off, and there�s phospates going off too. They are consumed by whoever eats the food and go into the sewage system, and don�t get back onto the land. As a consequence of this, we need to apply more artificial fertilizers. There is a growing problem with phosphorous. There�s a finite supply: rock phosphate is getting scarcer and scarcer, and that then means that more and more energy is needed to make it available to us and to transport it from places like Morocco.

So we need to think of how fertilizer can be better retained in the soil, so that if you are putting nitrogen on, it stays there. We need to minimise the use of artificial nitrogen, and to start replacing it with organic sources, such as legumes which fix nitrogen. Then, we need to make sure that any that escapes is recycled.

OM: What are the future implications for farming?

RD: Agriculture is likely to become more labour intensive again. The trend towards the larger farms will be reversed as the cost of food and fuel rises in real terms and takes a higher proportion of non-farmers' incomes. Farmers won't just be growing food. They will be producing fuel, chemicals, fibres and building materials as well. A whole new category of multi-purpose crops will emerge.

OM: How do you envision these multi purpose crops being utilized most efficiently?

RD: It may emerge in a way similar to the co-op creamery structure of a century ago, where the co-op would take the milk and the farmer would take back the whey. I envisage a co-op bio-refinery in each community to which farmers would deliver crops like miscanthus, which would be refined to give protein powder, biogas, diesel fuel, plastics like nylon, pesticides and soil improvers. The farmers would take the improvers back to their farms to recycle the nutrients that were in the crop they delivered to the refinery. Because transport will become more expensive, the plants' bulk will be reduced in rural areas and there will be centralised refineries regionally that take the valuable bits and process them further. At the bioenergy show in Tullamore this year, miscanthus was being sold in compressed blocks for people's fires, just like the wood blocks made from compressed sawdust. But 20% of dried grass is plant protein � that�s too valuable to burn. Quite simply, we should be taking out the valuable bits before burning any biomass.

OM: So the biorefineries would produce biofuels like biodiesel?

RD: Yes, but I should emphasise that these would be second-generation biofuels, produced by breaking down the cellulose found in all plants. Feasta is very much against the production of most first-generation biofuels, such as ethanol from maize and wheat and biodiesel from oilseed rape. These make no sense from an energy or a climate point of view. Their production is entirely driven by tax-breaks and the net result has been to increase hunger around the world. The only first generation biofuel that is acceptable is ethanol from sugar cane in Brazil.

OM: If farmers go in this direction in the near future, what�s in it for them?

RD: If farmers can increase the carbon content of their soils, or the semi-permanent biomass that�s growing on them, they need to be rewarded in some way for doing this because they would be helping prevent climate change. Part of their reward would be that they made their soil much better. It is however, very difficult to measure the carbon content of soils to pay farmers a set amount per tonne for the carbon that they have taken in. Feasta is therefore setting up a working party to develop a new concept of best practice - to develop a better understanding of the types of farming that involve sequestering more and more carbon in the soil or in the plants growing on the soil. It needs to become financially beneficial to follow best practice. There could be payments through REPS, or the price of the crops could be subsidised in some sort of way. We�re going to need people in the working party with expertise in this area, and we�re getting very good co-operation from the universities and from Teagasc on this.

OM: Are there any new developments that might help with soil performance and quality?

RD: Feasta has become particularly interested in the inclusion of charcoal in the soil. It has recently been discovered that the pre Columbian Indians put charcoal into the soil because it held the nutrients there. Also, there was an increase in microbial and fungal activity which made the soil more fertile. These soils still exist in the Amazon basin where they are called terra preta, which means dark earth. What happens, it seems, is that the fungi feed on sugars sent down by the plants, and they in turn send up nutrients to the plants. So the plant sequesters carbon too. Terra Preta promises to do three things: 1 sequester more carbon in the soil; 2 hold nutrients there more efficiently; 3 give bigger crops.

OM: Where does Feasta stand on the cows vs cars debate?

RD: We don't think there should be a debate at all. Some civil servants seem to think that because cows' digestive systems give off methane, a GHG, Ireland should reduce its greenhouse emissions by cutting the number of either cars or cows. This is, we think, a total misconception. We've tried to get the IFA to make the case that cows are very different because the methane they release is not adding fossil carbon to the air but it just doesn�t seem to be bothered. It seems to hope that its political muscle will shield its members from any herd-reduction measures the government might introduce. The ICMSA has a very much better attitude.

OM: But isn�t methane a serious GHG?

RD: Methane is a very serious GHG. It�s probably 60 times worse than CO2. Official figures suggest that it is 23 times more, but that�s over a 100 year period. However, all its heating effect is concentrated in the first few years before it is broken down. But - and this is crucial - the carbon in the methane released by cows comes from natural sources. It is not adding continuously to the carbon in the air, because the plants that the cows grazed on picked up the carbon from the air. So the cows are part of the natural carbon cycle. They are not leading to a net increase in the warming effect. If you increase the size of the national herd, you get a once off increase in methane; you don�t get a continuous increase in CO2 levels, as you do if you are burning fossil fuels in a car. So there is no comparison at all between cars and cows.

OM: I presume you are talking about grass-fed animals, where the grass gets its nitrogen from legumes? And surely processing, distribution and so on need to be taken into account before you can presume diary and beef will be acceptable in sustainability terms?

RD: If meat and milk is to be produced anywhere in the world, Ireland should be one of the places producing them because the fossil fuel emissions from producing them here are lower than they would be almost anywhere else. You've also got to consider the carbon emissions if forest is cleared for beef production in places like Brazil. And, because Ireland is close to a lot of people who need meat and milk products, it should not take a lot of energy to get the food to them, although more of it will go by sea in future rather than by truck.

OM: So, in certain relatively easy to attain circumstances, we can keep our beef and dairy industries.

RD: Yes, I think so. But many more cattle will be kept indoors so that the slurry can be turned into biogas. This will be used for heating, for electricity and compressed to run vehicles. Farmers have been very slow to realise that the energy content of a bullock's dung is worth more than its meat.

OM: What's the biggest challenge facing Irish farmers?

RD: They, in common with farmers around the world, have got to find ways of turning their sector from being a source of greenhouse emissions into a sink which removes them. At present, about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from agriculture and changes in land use, such as forest clearance. Those emissions not only have to stop but, because the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is already above the safe limit, CO2 needs to be removed from the air quickly, before it has set off a disastrous uncontrollable global warming process. We might have thirty years to do this. There's no high-tech solution. Only the world's farmers can respond in time.