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Biochar and George Monbiot's Misguided Rant
A couple of weeks ago, we discussed the possibilities of biochar – burning organic waste, such as wood chips, left-over crop residue or even manure at extremely low oxygen levels and high temperatures in order to produce charcoal and biogas. The charcoal would go into the ground, increasing soil fertility, while the gas would be an effective energy source, making good use of detritus that would otherwise decompose, returning its carbon to the atmosphere.
I suggested that although the technology was still distant from full-scale implementation, it had considerable promise as a way to draw-down carbon from the atmosphere.
Well, environmental writer George Monbiot has demurred. He wrote in the Guardian yesterday that biochar advocates have been “suckered.” They promote “an even crazier use of woodchips.” They wish to “turn the planet’s surface into charcoal.” They are a wild band of “magical thinkers” who wish to “destroy the biosphere in order to save it."
Remember, this is Monbiot, a serious analyst of anthropogenic global warming, not Bjorn Lomborg or a mercenary from the Heartland Institute. This man isn’t “supposedly” in the coalition to avert disastrous warming – he’s part of it, through and through.
So what’s he in a tizzy about? A lot of nothing, it turns out, since he’s battling with a straw-man that most biochar researchers don’t take even remotely seriously.
Monbiot states that the idea that “biochar is a universal solution that can be safely deployed on a vast scale is as misguided as Mao Zedong's Great Leap Backwards,” adding that its “hazards” outweigh it benefits, that it’s unclear if it even promotes soil fertility.
After so much huffing-and-puffing, he finally notes, “Nor does this mean that charcoal can't be made on a small scale, from material that would otherwise go to waste.”
Monbiot is right to tear into those who propose industrial tree-farming as a way to create biomass for biochar. And of course he is right to point out that there would be problems in planting 1.4 billion hectares of trees and sugar to produce biomass for biochar, as Peter Read suggests, since the world’s arable land is 1.36 billion hectares.
But beyond that, he’s quite lost his way.
Contradicting Monbiot’s worry that it isn’t clear if biochar can increase land’s fecundity, Johannes Lemann’s research project at Cornell University has shown that biochar has tremendous effects on soil fertility.
And Jim Hansen, one target of Monbiot’s polemic, adds that serious scientists aren’t suggesting trash-forest plantations but are advocating pryolizing farm waste: turning some into charcoal—biochar—that can be buried to increase soil fertility, turning the rest, which would normally decompose, bleeding carbon into the atmosphere, into a biogas that can be used as fuel in lieu of fossil energies.
One peer-reviewed paper published by Lemann and a team of researchers in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change advocates replacing slash-and-burn with slash-and-char in tropical areas.
Slash-and-burn leaves a residue of 3 percent of the biomass’s carbon in the soil. Pyrolysis leaves up to 50 percent. Meanwhile, deforestation could only continue until it is taxed as a carbon emission. The biochar strategy would mitigate carbon emissions while deforestation decreases. Monbiot is against this?
In another paper, published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, the authors, including Hansen, observe that
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I heard about biochar a few
I heard about biochar a few months ago from a friend of mine. I never thought that something as simple as charcoal could do so much for the soil and the environment.
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They have a great discount for Christmas on the book at the moment.
Check it out. It was a great help in opening my mind to issues that affect us all.
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Biochar
Not all charcoal is biochar. True biochar is the result of heating biomass in an emission free pyrolysis reactor devoid of oxygen. Biochar has been shown to be a very effective soil amendment in numerous studies in South America and Japan. It is becoming popularized enough in the US that Biochar Xtra is now even being sold on Ebay. Others are using the bio-oils derived from biochar production to replace fossil fuels. Some folks are alarmed at the possibility of vast tracts of land being denuded to produce biochar. This is not a valid concern because, due to its very low density of from 20 to 35 pounds per cubic foot, the transport of biochar over long distances is not economically feasible.
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How many cross posts will contiune
Mistakes, we all make a few
Cross comment post galore?
SolveClimate
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‘many of us will have to agree to disagree if we want to solve this in our short lifetime.
A disagreement in principals and application should not be a dismissal of ideas…
James & George are gentlemen who promote great ideas and appear to be fighting the good fight. It makes their ideas easy targets. But they need to remember we are together in this.
I have certainly had flawed ideas and plans and will have many more, it is called learning. The gravest mistake is not having either.
I would also assert that George Monbiot - has got it half right.
He is correct on a major level when media promotes a good idea as a ‘miracle cure’ and can lead to disappointment or disaster,world markets jump on a singular idea as the silver bullet and sometime destroy the beneficial future of the original idea along with all good intentions.
It is NOT the fault of the ideas but the form they are presented (i.e. steak served in ashtray).
Pushing a idea ‘over the top and making its broad application sound simply silly’
For years thousands oppose and protest ‘tangible solutions’ to ‘high risk problems’ and it has pushed us from a hole into the abyss.
Simply ’stating idealist principals ‘ is not a ‘realistic solution’… just ‘intangible arguments’ to sell more books about ‘future dreams and wishes’.
Focus is key to ending the debate - plantations devoted to non food projects should be last priority. but, ‘processing some existing crop wastes and using them for carbon sequestration is an entirely sensible idea’- with many benefits.
Also James stating there is a ‘only tool’ to bring carbon dioxide back to pre-industrial levels… is a kinda singular thought. CO2 is NOT the cause of the millions dying of current air, water and soil pollution… but the effect of the same problems.
EVERY tangible solution has flaws when broadly applied.
There is no PERFECT plan or universal answer for everyone in every area.
A perfect plan for communities in Wisconsin WILL fail horribly in Arid regions and vise versa.
Scale, population and regional resources change everything.
George should stick to ’slamming’ the idea that promoting silver bullet and miracle cures ‘is the problem’ and not simply dismiss a solid and proven idea because it is not that…. and maybe James should brace there is no ‘only tool’.
But, Hey I’m not pushing a books, press articles or singular idealistic principals.
“I’m just a simple man, trying to make his way in the universe” - Jango Fett
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