[Terrapreta] [Stoves] Response to Andrew Heggie re "biochar/terrapreta"

[AJH]

On Thu, 29 Mar 2007 10:48:22 -0600, Ron Larson wrote:

>    [RWL1:  You've been doing such a good job that I had to go off and find another job  (and wouldn't be talking "terrapreta" today if Tom Miles hadn't been involved in both "stoves" or "terrapreta").  I try to read all the "stoves" material these days but I find not enough time in the day to even keep up with the "terrapreta" list - which is really active now.  As important as "stoves" is,  I get more worried about climate issues every day.  The two topics are nicely coupled -

It all seems so long ago now but I stumbled across [stoves] whilst
looking for literature about charcoal. As a result I collaborated with
another list member in a clean charcoal process. We attempted to
"sell" the concept on the basis that pyrolysis offgas components, if
not flared, were both bad greenhouse gases as well as carcinogens,
also the CO seemed to be implicated in affects on the ozone layer.
Fairly early on we approached the charitable organisation I was
involved with and suggested using char as a soil amendment, for
sequestration.
>> 
>> I think there's a way to go to fulfill your prediction all the time we
>> burn coal but it does make an interesting idea in that the micro
>> economics  could mean it could be a cash crop where there is no hope
>> of competing with a large coal producer. If the carbon credits can be
>> managed, and that's a big IF to my mind because gross distortions of
>> the market by fancy mechanisms like this will attract corruption, it
>> gives a near subsistence farmer the means to maintain fertility and
>> cash in the credits.   
>    
>    [RWL2:  a.  Please clarify:  when you use the word "coal" in second and fourth lines above - is that what I mean by "charcoal" or does the second use imply the stuff dug from the ground?  

I mean fossil coal, generally charcoal is a word reserved for charcoal
made from wood, though traditionally the fossil form was known as "sea
coal" and the stuff made from wood just "coal". A place in south
london is named after charcoal makers "Colliers Wood".


>Others (I think mostly from the UK and Australia) have suggested the word "biochar" - I think trying to avoid any use of "coal".  I am myself now going to stay further away from "coal" in all cases, but "charcoal" is hard for me to avoid using.

Biochar is more all encompassing as it can include other stems and
leaves, in fact I thought terra preta was general slash and waste
incorporated after an air starved burn.

>            c.  I am still very ignorant on the carbon credit market - which I believe may still not allow credits for charcoal.  A big problem that needs fixing.

Yes others would need to comment on this, I have no experience. What I
do have experience of is planting trees by the thousand that were
destroyed as soon as grant funding dried up, so planting a tree as a
carbon sink seems likely to be a short term means of sequestraion to
me.

>            d.  I hope you can expand on your above "IF" statement - the issue of corruption.   Do you mean the problem of producers showing proof of charcoal manufacture but the charcoal instead being consumed?

Sort of, how would a small biochar producer tap into this market. He
cannot just dump his char into a ploughed field and claim a credit.
From what I have seen of any regulated market activity the
verification process spawns a vast employment hierarchy which tends to
attract the brighter people, who then basically parasitise the
industry. So whilst there is scope for corruption it's the regulatory
framework that adds the costs. We have good evidence of this from
wartime rationing through to the recent scandals with butter, wheat
and olive oil "mountains". While I can see potential benefits
from,say, a small scale sugar cane farmer charring his leaves and
trash and incorporating them I cannot readily see a way of verifying
it robustly.


>> How do you envisage it working, to my mind the carbon needs to be
>> denatured from fuel use before it can be certified as sequestered. 
>> 
>    [RWL3:   a.  Not quite sure of your "denatured" word.  Obviously there should be a bigger "offset" credit if the pyrolysis gases themselves are used to displace fossil fuels.  This part would have no connection to soils.  That can be one-for-one, as there is no continuing benefit. 

I mean it would need to be made unavailable as a fuel, lest someone
simply used it for cooking after the credit had been received.

>            b.  Perhaps you mean that "denaturing" is somehow ensuring that credit certification should include both the charcoal producer and the sequesterer?

Well I suspect the market would quickly sort out that split, on the
surface it looks like there would not be a shortage of fields/crops to
use it on and there is considerable benefit to a grower, so I suspect
the biochar maker would grab the biggest share of any credit.

>            c.   The mechanism for providing assurances is not clear - but I guess will have to fall upon groups like local governments or NGOs - with periodic checks by progressively higher levels of government.   I think small rewards to "whistle-blowers" will help police mal-practice quite well.

Funnily enough I don't, applying global credits to a local economy
will make it attractive to whole groupings (e.g. a village or tribe)
to defraud. We had the fairly recent case in 2002 of an animal
epidemic getting out of hand because a neighbour who was well aware of
shortcuts in a hygiene process being taken, not reporting it.


>                c.  But your own pyrolysis work is particularly exciting to me  (explaining to others that I visited Andrew's backyard several years ago where he showed a  particularly efficient quite large pyrolysis system able to work well with large pieces of green wood for use in removing excess material in the UK's many abundant forests.)   I think that the credits and soil values should be particularly helpful in your goals.  Can your review the present status of your work?  Wasn't it a continuous (non-batch) approach, suitable for transportation between forests?

That was the aim, essentially to take the low value wood, currently
uneconomic to harvest, and turn it directly to char, for sale as a
number of value added fuel products. We had a number of processes,
from a simple modified pit method which was loaded by tractor through
big top lit updraught burners and then to the pressurised re
circulating retort (this was batch) which (very briefly) fueled a
modified gas turbine with the offgas and made a low temperature char
(about 84% fixed carbon).
>                d.  As I search around on the web, I am impressed by how much good pyrolysis work seems to be going on in the UK.  Am I correct in that assessment?    Any official British government support now for pyrolysis?  (Essentially zero in the US, as near as I can tell).

I'm completely out of the loop on any pyrolysis work following the
dissolution of our venture, I just potter around with my own little
experiments now and then between jobs.

Andrew Heggie