Cooling the Planet with
Biomass?
350ppm CO2 ?
Catastrophic climate change
demands strong measures…
• Burning biomass and sequestering the
carbon will reduce the carbon dioxide
in the atmosphere.
• 500 million hectares of biomass
plantations may be enough to re-freeze
the Arctic and keep the methane locked
up.
Terra preta: Charcoal has helped
to lock carbon into the soil for
millennia
Modern Biochar
• What Amazonian
peoples achieved in
centuries or
millennia, modern
agriculture and the
forestry industry
can do in a few
years, locking
decades worth of
fossil fuel emissions
into the soil forever.
Biochar can take 6 billion tonnes
of carbon out of the atmosphere
every year (Tim Flannery)
Bioenergy with CCS can cool the
planet even more (J.Hansen)
www.epa.state.oh.us/dir/ccsdiagram.jpg
What do we (not) know about
biochar?
• There is no long-term study to show whether soil
nutrients and carbon will stay in the soil. The
longest study was abandoned after 4 years and no
results were published.
• Nobody knows how to incorporate biochar into the
soil without increasing soil erosion and depletion,
which would emit even more CO2.
• In boreal forests, biochar has been shown to
increase microbial activity, leading to original soil
carbon being released into the atmosphere.
The biochar investment rush
begins…
Biochar is a by-product
of pyrolysis. This
means gasification of
biomass, which yields
bio-oil and syngas.
Dynamotive pyrolysis plant
Both can be used for
heat and power, or
converted to
synthetic bio-diesel.
Char is a by-product of pyrolysis. Revenues from selling
it as a fertiliser, and possibly gaining future carbon credits
would make pyrolysis firms more competitive.
Integrated biorefineries
Biochar would be another
lucrative product from
future integrated
biorefineries.
Those would bring
together the pulp and
paper industry, agrobusiness and the
chemical industry to
produce transport fuels,
heat and power, various
chemical products and
fertilisers.
500 million hectares of biochar
plantations?
Pictures by
FSC Watch
and Global
Justice
Ecology
Project
Industrial monocultures
accelerate climate change
Monocultures are the main driver
of deforestation.
are not
Monocultures of trees or crops deplete
soil and water. They require large
amounts of agro-chemicals made from
fossil fuels.
Nitrous oxide and methane from industrial
agriculture accounts for 14% of all
greenhouse gas emissions.
www.timberwatch.org.za/
Deforestation accounts for 18% - and
peat drainage possibly for even more.
Climate change from ecosystem
destruction: More than carbon
emissions
Nitrogen Cycle: Regulated by soil microbes and
plants (controls levels of the greenhouse gas
nitrous oxide)
Evapo-transpiration: Forests play a key role
in regulating rainfall systems and stormtracks
jrscience.wcp.muohio.edu
www.fossweb.com
Monocultures drive Amazon
destruction
Storm clouds over the Amazon:
How the forest drives rainfall
The Amazon forest
recycles 70-80% of its
rainfall. Large amounts
of energy are released
and push rain clouds
across much of Latin
America and the
southern US. Without
enough dense canopy,
that whole rainfall
system could collapse.
NASA
satellite
Amazon
Fires
72,000
Sept 2007
Para
Up 39-85%
Mato
Grosso
Up 100-127
Soya refugees today – biochar
refugees tomorrow?
Indigenous environmental refugees (climate change, soy
expansion): Mbya Guarani people on the streets of Asunción,
Paraguay, www.globalforestcoalition.org
Eviction for sugar ethanol in Brazil
“We are well positioned to win the current land
grab in next-generation fuels”
(BestEnergies, leading investor in pyrolysis
and biochar research)
No stable climate without
biodiversity
Biodiversity losses reduce the Earth’s
ability to regulate the climate. If species
are lost, the ability of ecosystems to
function can suddenly collapse.
We are around today because, during
previous warming periods and mass
extinctions, enough species survived to
eventually stabilise the climate.
Conclusions 1
• Fossil fuel burning and ecosystem
destruction are the twin drivers of
climate change.
• The industrial exploitation of the
biosphere is not compatible with the
surival of human and other species.
Conclusions 2
• We may not be able to prevent
catastrophic climate change. There are
no known ways of cooling the planet.
• Planetary engineering of the biosphere
is likely to trigger irreversible
ecological and climate collapse.
• We need to stop the destruction of the
biosphere and the burning of fossil
fuels to give humans and other species
a chance of survival.