Biochar & Climate Change

Fossil fuels add carbon to the atmosphere when they are burned. This carbon is carbon that was not in the atmosphere before the carbon was burned. As a result, fossil fuels are carbon positive. Unfortunately in this case positive is not a good thing. Continually ading carbon to the atmosphere more quickly than it can be reabsorbed back into plants, animals, oceans and forests has caused the earth to start heating up.

One tool scientists have proposed to deal with ever increasing carbon levels is Biofuel. If energy is obtained by burning carbon that has been recycled out of the atmosphere by plants then it would not be new carbon hence the process would be carbon neutral. The carbon in the plants that is burned to creat the energy is only there because the process of photosynthesis enabled the plants to pull it out of the atmosphere in the first place. Furthermore, had the plants been left to the natural cycle they would have eventually died, decomposed and released their carbon back into the atmosphere through their normal cycle.

Now consider the case of biochar. Biochar can lock “sequester” carbon into stable carbon pools within the soil for hundreds and even thousands of years. Biochar also improves soil fertility, stimulating plant growth, which then consumes more CO₂ in a feedback effect. And the energy generated as part of biochar production can displace carbonpositive energy from fossil fuels. Additional effects from adding biochar to soil can further reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance carbon storage in soil. These include:

Biochar reduces the need for fertilizer, resulting in reduced emissions from fertilizer production.
Biochar increases soil microbial life which results in more carbon storage in soil.
Because biochar retains nitrogen, emissions of nitrous oxide (a potent greenhouse gas) may be reduced.
Turning waste biomass into biochar reduces methane (another potent greenhouse gas) generated by the natural decomposition of the waste.

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