There is no doubt that we need a more realistic and practical way to start the transformation in order to create the optimal conditions for re-storing forest with productive fruity trees combined with deep-rooted perennial grasses. Accordingly many researchers are looking into biochar for its ability to turn problem areas into productive sites while building soil carbon, reducing atmospheric CO2, boosting soil productivity and increasing resilience to floods and drought. It naturally contains many of the micronutrients needed by plants, such as selenium. It is also safer than other "natural" fertilizers such as animal manure, since it has been disinfected at high temperature. And, since it releases its nutrients at a slow rate, it greatly reduces the risk of water table contamination. As an element aiming for global warming mitigation Johannes Lehmann, a professor of agricultural science at Cornell University and one of the world’s top experts on biochar, has calculated that if bio-char were added to 10 percent of global cropland, the effect would be to sequester 29 billion tons of CO2 equivalent, (roughly equal to humanity’s annual greenhouse gas emissions).

It is still unclear how long that buried carbon would remain sequestered from the atmosphere, how much biomass would have to be turned into bio-char to make a meaningful dent in global warming, the most adequate source to obtain biochar and the social impacts this might have (for example, by encouraging the clear/cutting of forests and their replacement by plantations of trees destined for bio-char production). Woody biomass is by far the largest source of feedstock for the biochar industry. Globally, the forestry and wood products sector offers a widely accessible source of woody residues that are often centrally located for ease of collection and transportation. However Lehmann and former NASA climate scientist James Hansen have emphasized that bio-char should be sourced from the massive amount of waste materials that normal agricultural and forestry production methods leave behind: corn stalks, rice husks, tree trimmings, roots etc. Personally I’m certain that this could be the only source biochar we’ll ever need in order to reach an effective withdraws of CO2 from the atmosphere. However this has to be done at a sufficient and global scale and most important, with new ecofriendly agriculture technologies that can eliminate human and animal agriculture GHG emissions in combination with an aggressive reductions in annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. The question now is whether this ecofriendly agriculture technologies can generate the amount of waste material needed to produce biochar on a sufficiently large, global scale to regenerate our forests and effectively withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere and reverse global warming. 

To date, the relatively high price of bio-char has been a stumbling block to the ambition of effectively withdraw CO2 from the atmosphere sufficiently and in global scale. In 2011, 94,159 tons of compost, a common soil amendment (that in the process of its production generates GHG gases), was sold at a price of $30-$50 per ton (USDA ERS, 2011) while as per Hal Collins, soil scientist/microbiologist and leader of a research project conducted by the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in Prosser, Washington State, the price per ton for biochar is far higher as entrepreneurs want about $200 per ton of biochar and studies don't show much improvement in soil until about 10 tons of biochar is applied on an acre of land (2.5Kg./m2), but Thomas Klasson, a scientist at the USDA’s Southern Regional Research Center in New Orleans points to a rule from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued in 2011 that sharply limits the amount of mercury that power plants and other industrial sources may emit, could help overcome that obstacle for biochar due to its cleansing abilities. The EPA estimates that its rule will reduce by 90 percent the amount of mercury emitted by coal-fired power plants, US largest source of mercury pollution (that according to the World Health Organization is one of the ten elements or chemicals of most serious public health concern, that even in small amounts may cause serious health problems) and could thereby give rise to a sizable new market for bio-char, which in turn would improve the economic viability of other utilizations of biochar and widespread research and development activities. However, as the unique biological, physical, and chemical properties of this material become clearer, investigations into applications for biochar other than addition to soils/carbon sequestration have arisen from super-capacitors to contaminant filtration. Although the focus of the International Biochar Initiative is on biochar for soil application and for soil carbon sequestration, other uses for the material are also being researched. Entrepreneurs have clearly begun to take note that businesses related to biochar production and uses have emerged around the globe in recent years and the world is witnessing the early stages of the formation of a biochar industry that in the near future, due to price point, will likely only be used in high-end specialty, rising the question of whether biochar price will be accessible for soil amendment and if there will be a low cost plant unit able to make enough biochar to allow widespread field application at low cost and in a sufficient and global scale that in combination with an aggressive reductions in annual greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels and human and animal agriculture could reach an effective withdraws of CO2 from the atmosphere.      

Indeed profits is the key factor for any initiative to be put in place and expand to a global scale. In this case no matter how critical the environmental and climate change situation can get, capitals will not flow to any solution that is not profitable or until economic losses get significantly high. Perhaps the most relevant example is the fact that after falling in reaching an unanimous agreement in previous Climate Change conferences since Berlin Mandate in 1995, it wasn’t until after the world realized that a 50 Gt (gigatons) release of methane, CO2 and other GHG in the atmosphere would cause such a global damage that include the disappearance of nations and a price tag of US$60 to US$70 trillion, that at 2015 Paris Conference on Climate Change, representatives from 196 countries came out with the first ever global accord in the fight against global warming to stop the use of fossil fuels. But most significant yet was the fact that English speaking countries like the United States, Britain and Australia, considered among the most skeptical when dealing with the acceptance of the reality and the causes of Climate Change, now have committed to giving US$100 billion of funding annually by 2020, to assist the poorest and most at-risk countries to deal with the impacts of climate change and build low-carbon technologies and new green energy alternatives.

In the case of biochar, whether is possible or not, the pursuit of a mega biochar production plant capable of making enough material at a global scale is not necessarily the only the way to reach such feasible production. The zero waste/use concept applied in the design of a new Vertical Aquaponics Agroindustry Complex that I have been presenting in previous articles may be the answer to expand the production of bio-char at a very low cost and in sufficient quantities to make a significant impact in global warming.

A bio-digesters (or anaerobic digester) conform the starting point of this zero waste/use concept applied in this new agroindustry complex where swage water and organic waste will undergo the first stage of treatment for its transformation into useful by products. It will be set up to collect and process sewage waters coming from all the complex installations, livestock excretions and in accordance with Johannes Lehmann and former NASA climate scientist James Hansen, the massive amount of harvested vegetables plants roots from the agricultural production of this complex, normally leaved behind to rot outside and release GHG gases. Three basic by-products will be produced: Bio-gas, Cleaner Water and since everything produced in this complex is organic, the anaerobic digester will also produce “Organic Mud”. The dry bio-mass of this mud will be subject to a thermal decomposition process, called Pyrolysis that at high temperatures in the absence of oxygen will transform the dry mud in to biochar. This process differs from other high-temperature processes like combustion and hydrolysis in that it usually does not involve reactions with oxygen, water, or any other reagents. The absence of oxygen prevents combustion thus most of carbon is not burned into the atmosphere, saving it as bio-char. Temperatures of 400–650 °C (752–932 °F) produces substantially more biochar (up to 50%) while pyrolysis processes at much higher temperatures above 700 °C (1,292 °F) favor the yield of liquid and gas fuel components. Once any of these processes is initialized, they also produce net energy using the syngas created by the process with an energy output 3 to 9 times the amount of energy required to run. This way the excess energy can be used for heating the bio-digester during cold seasons in latitudes with cold winters and/or for any other type of heating needed in the complex such as the fryers used in formed, breaded individually (IQF) frozen products manufacturing lines.

According to an acceptable method that can be used to estimate biochar stability IBI (2013; 2014), biochars with hydrogen to organic carbon molar ratio (H:C) values of 0.4 and below are characterize as highly stable, they will have at least 70% organic carbon remaining in the soil,100 years after application. With an H:C ration between 0.4 and 0.7, the biochar is considered stable, with potentially 50% organic carbon remaining in the soil after 100 years from application. The H:C of the dried sludge from the anaerobic digestion is 1.74 and reduces to 0.44 in a biochar produced at 600°C, representing a very stable biochar and the high ash content would be beneficial to soil fertility.  

On average 56% of the original biomass is removed through anaerobic digestion, leaving 44% which could be converted to biochar. With a 600°C pyrolysis process the average biochar yield is 52.4% of the biomass left after anaerobic digestion. A 10 vegetable productions units vertical aquaponics agroindustry complex and 2 controlled environment livestock production units has the potential to generate about 14 tons a day of wasted organic biomass and after undergoing an anaerobic digestion 6.1 tons of biomass will be obtained and base on a conservative yield estimation of 524 kg of biochar for each metric ton (1000kg) of organic matter (52.4% of the initial weight), up to 3.2 tons of bio-char could be produce every day, (or 1,100 tons a year). But what is most significant is that even sold at US$ 500/ton it only represent just 0.7% of the total sales of an extraordinary profitable operation that could generate up to more than the original investment in the first full year of operation, meaning that the profits from the biochar are completely irrelevant and it could be giving away for free without causing a dent on the financial feasibility of the project. The extraordinary production and operation efficiency of this new initiative is what makes it profitable and can give the food producing industries and especially to animal agriculture, the capacity to diversify their production and significantly increase their profits; and its relatively low implementation cost can encourage the investment to reconvert their traditional practices into more sustainable ones that with a global expansion will reach a profound change in the way we produce our food while eliminating the leading consumption of resources and most important, reversing the environmental degradation in our planet while adapting food production under new extreme climate conditions in order to produce in less than 10% of the current total world cultivated land all the food that will be needed by 2050 and beyond reducing the current 70% water consumption from humanity's fresh water, for global agriculture, down to aproximately 30%.

The profound and transcendental impact of this new agroindustry complex not only represent a real and practical solution for governments and industries  to reduce to one digit the percentage of all the global greenhouse gas emissions generated by animal agriculture (livestock and their byproducts), in order to successfully reach a median level of carbon dioxide equivalent, way below the 42 GtCO2e required to keep temperature increase below the 2 °C target at which dangerous climate change can be avoided by the end of the century, but also represent the way to eliminate waste, the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, protect our natural resources, and to reach an effective withdraws of CO2 in the atmosphere to reverse and win the climate fight!