The Australia New Zealand Biochar Industry is an exciting place to be in 2019 with the inaugural mention of Pyrogenic
Carbon Capture & Storage (PyCCS) which produces biochar, as a viable Negative Emissions Technology (NET) for carbon dioxide removal
(CDR) in the 2018 IPCC Report. NET's are being touted to help meet climate targets and keep temperatures below the
critical 1.5 degree increase determined by stakeholders.
It has been grouped with other NET's such as biomass carbon (tree planting), building soil carbon through regenerative
agriculture and Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), a GHG mitigation technology which produces negative
carbon dioxide emissions by combining biomass use with geologic carbon capture and storage. Up unitl now, these methods
have gained more publicity.
PyCSS and biochar has now been gained credibility as a viable NET for CDR because biomass carbon is easily degraded and
returned to atmosphere as GHG's through the continual work of microbes (the natural carbon cycle). If biomass is
pyrolysed, it is thermally recoved into solid biochar, liquid bio-oils and permanent gas that can all be stored in the
biosphere, helping to cool the planet. This makes sense as the balancing practice to mining fossil fuel carbon and
releasing it straight into the atmosphere. PyCCS and biochar help repair both the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
Pyrolysis currently captures and stores between 30-50% yields of soild biochar but with the liquid and gaseous recovery
this figure moves up to >70%, according to a paper released on the topic in August last year
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327082062_Pyrogenic_Carbon_Capture_Storage_PyCCS
This increase in carbon sequestration is via the use of biochar in regenerative agriculture, bio based materials used in
water filtration, building and road construction as well as suitable geological deposits. The first two applications are
value added economic products requiring no further government incentive and this is what has attracted the attention of
the IPCC. The other reason PyCCS and biochar is now taking hold in the mainstream market place is that it is a well
established and environmentally safe technology that can be taken up globally.
The Australia New Zealand Biochar Initiative Inc (ANZBI) is a not for profit organisation and assists the mainstreaming
of biochar in an ANZ context. https://www.anzbi.org/ ANZBI acknowledges that repairing anthropogenic global warming will
be via a mix of solutions which PYCCS and biochar has synergies with.
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