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Outback Biochar Seeking Biomass for Biochar Production
Outback Biochar is looking for organic waste that we can convert to biochar (bio char). If your company or someone you know is dealing with disposal or risk management issues related to organic waste then we would love the opportunity to speak with you.
Demand for biochar is growing and we need biomass to convert to biochar through pyrolysis. Ideally we would like to find waste streams in the range of 30 to 200 tons per day. To contact us please call Jubal Hill at Outback Biochar on 02 9773 9455 or email info@outbackbiochar.com
Obama Supports Biochar
Obama invests in biochar (bio char) and algae-to-fuel (Original Article)
18 September 2009
The US DOE has awarded Arizona Public Service (APS) a $7.5 million (€5 million) investment in algae-derived biofuels and biochar.
The investment was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The project was launched as the White House released proposed regulations for implementing tough new auto emissions standards in 2012.
APS will seek to grow algae fast enough to absorb carbon dioxide released from burning biochar to make electricity. The biochar will in turn be created from syngas released from coal.
According to the Department of Energy, ‘Funding will enable APS to scale up its algae cultivation concept by about two orders of magnitude and scale up its hydrogasification concept by one order of magnitude. Researchers expect that the algae farm will reuse CO2 at a rate of 70 metric tons per acre per year.’
Biochar Coming to West Australia
To view the original article click “here“.
POULTRY farmer Rob Kestel is confident a large-scale pyrolysis plant proposed for Western Australia will provide an effective way to dispose of chicken litter by making biochar (bio char).
The proposed plant, to be built near Bunbury, south of Perth, is expected to produce three megawatts of power and about 10,000 tonnes of biochar a year.
Rob, who is a shareholder in the plant, expects it to provide a solution for poultry waste management on his farm at Gingin, north of Perth.
Manure from chicken-meat farms is commonly used as fertiliser. However, it also harbours the biting stable fly, which attacks humans, domestic pets, horses and other livestock.
“The use of raw poultry manure from chicken production will be banned in WA from 2010, to reduce fly populations,” Rob said.
On a recent overseas study tour Rob visited a pilot pyrolysis plant in the US.
The proposed pyrolysis plant will burn poultry litter (half chicken droppings and half sawdust) in the absence of oxygen, to produce charcoal and a synthetic gas, or syngas, for generating electricity.
Rob said the biochar byproduct would provide a cleaner fertiliser and allow the plant’s operator to engage in emissions trading.
“One of the best things about the biochar is that it is carbon negative, actually capturing carbon from the atmosphere,” he said. The plant is expected to be operating by 2011.
The company behind the pyrolysis plant, Blair Fox Generation, is part-owned by members of Western Australia’s poultry industry.
It’s no drain on the brain to see that this is a potential carbon sink we need to explore
To view the original article from Brisbane Times click “here“.
SYD Shea stands before a couple of old 44-gallon drums, contented as a new father. The drums are hot and the air carries the scent of charcoal. Here is what Shea, an old man now, wishes to make his life’s final great work. He is producing what he believes could help save the planet and create great agricultural wealth.
Shea is professor of environmental management at Perth’s University of Notre Dame, and it’s not too much to say he is obsessed with the subject of biochar. “Biochar” is hardly a romantic term, and the stuff looks pretty unpromising. It’s just . . . well . . . charcoal.
It’s nothing more than the result of heating organic material such as wood (or just about anything else) while limiting the amount of oxygen in the process so it doesn’t actually burn. That’s why Shea’s 44-gallon drums are sealed with dried mud, and why there is no smoke escaping. As far as he is concerned, however, magic is occurring within those drums.
It’s no new discovery. Amazonian Indians were creating biochar about 2000 years ago to grow their crops, and it has been popular among Japanese farmers for centuries. Essentially, Shea contends, the magic occurring in his drums leads to three exciting results.
The char that is produced has locked within it virtually all the carbon that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere, and it will stay locked away for hundreds, and in many cases, thousands of years. The stuff can then be returned to the soil through tilling, its nutrients significantly boosting crop production. Furthermore, in the production process, a gas is produced that can be captured and used for heating, running motors and generating power.
A couple of old 44-gallon drums aren’t going to save the planet, though, and it’s a source of frustration for the professor and many like him that the industry hasn’t been able to advance much beyond that simple stage in Australia.
Shea envisions large, modern plants producing millions of tonnes of the stuff, using purpose-grown trees or crops as fuel, or taking the huge amount of waste generated by blue gum plantations. He also sees the potential to use the straw that is a byproduct of wheat harvesting across Australia’s plains. Indeed, just about any form of waste, including manure, can be converted into biochar.
Shea and two partners – Melbourne-based engineer and investor Peter Burgess and West Australian grain and sheep farmer Ian Stanley – have established what they call the Rainbow Bee Eater strategy to push their beliefs. They figure that with official support they could lock away 20 million tonnes of carbon and generate 12,000 gigawatts of low-cost energy a year – one-third of Australia’s renewable energy target.
You might imagine that at a time when governments everywhere are desperately trying to work out how to meet greenhouse targets by reducing carbon emissions and searching for alternative and renewable sources of energy there would be great official excitement about the potential of biochar. The Federal Government, for instance, is throwing large amounts of money at the idea of burying carbon – geo-sequestration, it’s called – from coal-fired power stations. Biochar is simply another method of sequestering carbon in soil. It’s a lot simpler than pumping it thousands of metres below the earth’s surface, and it comes with those side benefits of enriching crops and producing gas.
Problem is, government support for biochar is at best muted. Early this year federal Agriculture Minister Tony Burke made it clear he wasn’t an enthusiast. “There are many different technologies that can be used to deliver (carbon sequestration), and biochar is one of them. It’s untested. It’s unproven.”
Burke’s sniffy comment came after Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull delivered a speech in February making it clear the Coalition wanted biochar placed towards the centre of the debate about emissions trading and climate change.
The Government response sounded suspiciously like a purely political rebuff. If Turnbull liked the idea of biochar, then Labor wouldn’t have a bar of it. If that’s the case, it’s pretty low-rent politics. Quite a few biochar proponents half wish that Turnbull hadn’t raised the matter at all, figuring that if the Rudd Government had thought of it first, it would have grabbed the idea and run with it.
Problem No. 2 is that the Government’s emissions trading policy doesn’t include agriculture until 2015, so biochar doesn’t get a guernsey in the labyrinthine business of accounting for carbon capture.
But is it untested and unproven, as Burke claimed? Up to a point – that point being that the Government won’t stump up the money required for exhaustive testing and proving.
However, the NSW Department of Primary Industries has been running biochar trials since 2006, and has declared that it has scientifically demonstrated it can increase soil carbon levels while improving crop productivity and soil health.
Environmental scientist and former Australian of the year Professor Tim Flannery is a major enthusiast. He says biochar looks too good to be true, “but I’ve looked at it from every angle and I fail to see the fault in the system”.
The CSIRO is more cautious, and has produced a paper emphasising that more research is required to ensure biochar’s safe production and use.
However, that same paper states that “due to its high chemical stability, high carbon content and its potential to reside in soil over decades, centuries, and even up to millennia, biochar applications have the potential to turn into a long-term carbon sink. Thus, biochar could play an important role in helping to sequester carbon from the atmosphere and partially offset greenhouse gas emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels”.
Meanwhile, Syd Shea tends his hot drums and imagines what Australia and the world might be able to achieve if only decision makers shared his sort of dreams.
Source: smh.com.au
Outback Biochar for Biochar News, Information and Research
For new information on biochar visit Outback Biochar for all the latest news, breaking stories and cutting edge research. Outback Biochar also offers wholesale biochar sales to nurseries and garden supply stores.
‘Char-apalooza’ presents top biochar breakthroughs
Click “Here” To view the original article from MSN.
First North American Biochar Convention pulls in top Obama brass and puts this fledgling industry on the map.
Karl’s note: I invited Lopa Brunjes, one of the top proponents of biochar, to document her trip to the biochar convention this month. Biochar is a technology which could provide clean energy, sequester carbon, and enrich soil all at the same time.
