Biochar and Carbon Credits

The Innovatree Carbon Group (ICG) team led by East Kootenay rancher and entrepreneur Jeff Braisher presents their experience and findings in the business of biochar and carbon credits. (Useful links are posted at the bottom of this description.)
Dr. Sue Satyro, a chemist and "carbon strategist" with specific experience in with expertise in carbon dioxide removal, “voluntary carbon markets”, and business startups, gives an overview of what biochar is and how it can be monetized into carbon credits.
Jeff Braisher gives an overview of the journey ICG took as they developed methods and experimented with field trials on Jeff's multi-generation cattle ranch that sprawls over thousands of acres south of Golden, BC.
Dr. Garrett Whitworth, a chemist with expertise in soils, carbon sequestration, and environmental analysis in both agriculture and forestry, has been on much of that journey, and he joins Jeff and Sue to answer questions at the end of the presentation.
CORRECTION (April 5 2023): Sue Satyro noted the following corrected text at 00:29:35 on the slide for Potential Revenue: "CDR Revenue Potential: US$221,398 per year (at US$115 per t-CO2e)".
BIOCHAR & CARBON CREDITS
~ March 28, 2023 ~
00:00:00 KBFA Introduction
00:01:25 Introducing Innovatree Carbon Group
00:03:13 Sue Satyro
00:04:00 What is Biochar?
00:06:25 Current Technology
00:08:39 Circular Economy
00:10:10 Biochar Material
00:14:57 Certification
00:17:00 Biochar Uses
00:19:05 Educational Resources
00:21:05 Carbon Dioxide Removal
00:23:21 Biochar Process
00:25:26 Carbon Credits
00:28:07 Documenting Carbon Balance
00:30:31 Q: Double-Counted Credits?
00:31:20 Q: Small Scale Carbon Credits?
00:32:40 Jeff Braisher
00:34:36 The Journey to Here
00:39:28 Field Trials
00:42:09 Scaling Up
00:44:14 Biochar Benefits
00:48:53 Nutrient Availability
00:53:13 Soil pH
00:54:24 Application Rates
00:57:21 Plant Responses
01:00:35 Challenges
01:03:39 Conclusions
01:06:47 Q: Trucking Costs?
01:09:24 Q: Low Tech & Small Scale?
01:12:33 Q: Mobile Burning Units?
01:14:08 Q: Biochar Uses Besides Soil?
01:18:01 Q: Microorganism Condos?
01:20:55 Thank You!
LINKS:
Biochar Stoves by International Biochar Initiative (IBI)
biochar-international.org/abo...
Biochar use in soil, including guidelines to set up your own trials (IBI)
biochar-international.org/abo...
US Biochar Initiative Learning Centre resources
biochar-us.org/welcome-biocha...
Biochar in cattle feed as a strategy to reduce methane
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti...
Mobile biochar system research and development by Climate Robotics
www.climaterobotics.com/
KOOTENAY & BOUNDARY FARM ADVISORS: kbfa.ca/
The Kootenay & Boundary Farm Advisors (KBFA) is an agricultural extension program that provides producers with free, technical production support and information.
KBFA supports producers to improve agricultural production and efficiency by helping to find solutions to farm-specific production issues, coordinating educational events, and connecting producers to information.

[@FredLinden]

Thank you for the video. Even though its context is a bit different than our circumstances -- less than a hectare of fruit orchard and other trees in Northeast Thailand -- I got a lot out of it, some of which should be applicable to the farm/forest/garden my wife & I have. We've been adding biochar/charcoal in the roughest of ways since we bought our property four and a half years ago. At first I just bought regular but expensive charcoal, which is sold everywhere in the countryside here; this had to be crushed, which was a challenge, and the quantities ended up being small. We also tried making our own charcoal, but it just added a lot more work and wasn't reliable. But now I just buy 20-40 sacks of residues at a time from local subsistence farmers who sell charcoal for kitchen fires. The smaller chunks and finer powder isn't usable for fires, so they're almost (almost) glad to get rid of it, and I pay THB 20 (USD 0.55) per sack of 12-17kg, with the weight depending mostly on the moisture level and non-pyrolized content. I have a tuktuk (like a motorcycle with two wheels in the back and a cargo bed) that's all-electric and equipped with a solar panel on top, so transport is carbon neutral. We've put, by my best but still ridiculously rough estimates of carbon content and weight, close to two metric tons of carbon into the ground so far. It's been a lot of hauling, wheelbarrowing and digging, all by hand, all in hot weather. One has to love this kind of work to do it. I do mix the charcoal with all kinds of stuff: rotting wood, green weeds, twigs, molasses, manure, urine, mycorrhizae and more, sometimes at the same time as a bury it. This seems to be working: for example, we dug a trench once across a place where we had buried biochar a year or two earlier, and there were many times more roots from the nearby trees in that particular area than just a meter away. I was especially glad to hear in the video that application on the soil surface is doable, because we now have roots in the ground in most places, so it's become much harder to find places where I can dig deeper trenches. I'll now try adding thin layers of biochar on top, wait for it to disappear into the soil and then later add another thin layer. We water by hand with hoses during the dry season, usually November through May, so I can water more where there's biochar on top, which I'm hoping -- without evidence, mind you -- will help it infiltrate the soil. The video also emphasized things like testing the pH level. I've known this could be an issue, but you really brought it home. Testing the pH is doable and not expensive. I'll probably watch the video again just to take better notes. Thank you again.

[@mikegagin2840]

Listening to this passively while working. There was mention secondary ingestion of biochar by livestock. This isn't a challenge, it is actually a good thing. My sheep loved eating biochar, it was a snack/supplement for them. I also imagine that when it "passed through" it was inoculated with bacteria making it even more effective as a fertilizer.

[@gillesdeclerck]

Great content. Thanks

[@MyMicrobialGarden]

Outstanding work

[@user-dp2pm4ni7j]

Any presentation on this video? I would like to see thst.

[@rickthelian2215]

We have this technology working in Sewerage Waste by Logan City Council Queensland Australia, besides using biochar just in gardens but can be used in roads concrete and other products 😊

[@Rhinoch8]

Sludge is full of heavy metals because of road and roof runoff. Not the best biochar source, but appreciate the effort.

[@justinbeck4197]

At 17:50 it is stated that biochar in soil research is now just doing re-dos. No, I was assigned to look for research on biochar for vineyard use and there is not even enough research and also I just was informed on biochar for soil for plant pathogen suppression.. also very under-researched.

[@mercermouth7571]

I own vineyards and also produce biochar. The bottom line; you have to conduct your own test based on the type of charcoal input and your unique soil type/conditions. Far too many variables to quantify universal results~

[@jean-pierredevent970]

I am now for a while obsessed by carbon removal through biomass fuel, energy and additional biochar production. I wonder now if a mobile microwave oven + press is possible. The biomass could this way be heated to say 300°C and compressed into briquettes. Once enough of these briquettes are present, a truck collects them and transports them to a pyrolysis facility. I have a feeling, for soil improvement, the biochar should be improved with something which really holds rain water. There are gels like that. And then desert soils could be turned into fertile land.

[@mpitts87]

So if you get it really really hot you can get a very clean carbon material that holds onto other nutrients electrons to maintain in the soil.

[@jean-pierredevent970]

I just saw a video where, sandy and dusty land with many goats nevertheless was left alone without the goats and this already restored many plants. With additional work, to hold water back, a paradise came to live. So if we could add something fertilizing, like biochar, then so much would be possible, yes. @@mpitts87

[@alanstuartwatt2455]

Compressed briquette may not work aa you are crushing the micropores in the biochar ..these become housing for soil bacteria..

[@gerrywalsh6853]

​@@alanstuartwatt2455I agree the magic of biochar is the surface area

[@sofakingphat8087]

We need to have a system where fuel such as would that is chipped or raw material is valued much like scrap metal. People could bring their raw material in for processing. I see a lot of people that are wasting a lot of material by burning it and then spraying water on it to do it quickly. That is really wasting resources. If we had factories that produce steam off of all the heat that is used to process biochar, then it would be more efficient and we could process these resources. People would bring in much like scrap metal is returned for cash. The steam could power electrical motors that would heat things like augers that are copper plated to heat the raw material and turn it into biochar. While the process happened, the gas could be collected to fire or ignite flame to heat a outer chamber made of copper. Copper conducts Heat and electricity very well and we could use a long auger system to process many tons of biochar a day by using copper. The auger could be lined with clay to keep the heat off of the bearings and other vital equipment. The outer wall of the auger could be played as well, the end of the auger shaft that is plated with copper good run into a water bath that would create steam to power the electrical motors. The electrical motors would have to be initially started by outsourced electricity, but eventually it would run perpetually. Copper expands when it’s heated, and this could seal the chamber. Some of the chamber would have to be vacuum sealed. The expansion of the copper could seal the tube and not allow oxygen to get in. After so long, the auger would cool and the copper wood retreat back to its natural form, perhaps after the water bath. I believe this would be the most effective way to process biochar, and the most efficient. It would take a long auger shaft to get it done. Jogger shaft could descend from an upper level from a hopper. It would take time to run test to see just how far the copper would expand, and how much copper plating would you need or copper sheeting. How thick the copper sheeting would have to be to work. It would be a way to recycle copper as well. Pretty much everything could be recycled I spoke about.

[@koltoncrane3099]

Sofaking Do you have a diagram? I’ve not seen a setup like you described. I get your idea. But commercially that’d only work in a major metropolitan area perhaps which already frowns on burning or any pollution. Now in a rural area I could see your idea being used. You could generate electricity perhaps and then use it to power Bitcoin miners and then you could literally say your Bitcoin is green because it was generated by making charcoal. Haha. But rural areas would have an advantage for making charcoal if their area has logging. If you have logging and scraps it’s like okay. If the government or forest service gave you free wood or the wood for free that’d be great. But I doubt it. You need to buy a permit to cut down dead pine forests. If you legitimately want to run the charcoal thing as a business you can’t count or hope people will bring free stuff to you. That only works if the government uses its police force to ensure you get stuff from your neighbor hahaha. LA doing city wide recycling makes sense cause of tbr population numbers. Does your setup allow for burning only wood or cow manure or anything carbon?

[@sofakingphat8087]

@@koltoncrane3099 I was just brainstorming and thought of an idea. I do a little bit of engineering work kinda as a side project. Nothing professional in the recent years but I did help quite a few farming companies to make some machinery more efficient back in the late 80s early 90s. as far as material to make into biochar, the world is wide, open and pretty much anything can be turned into biochar. Perhaps mining landfills would become a popular industry for materials. Perhaps even saving waste after combining corned and bean fields, etc. etc. I don’t have a working model however, I did see someone using a auger to process some small batches of biochar. His model burn up the bearings and would have overheated the gas motor used to turn the auger. I was just building on someone else’s idea. That’s kind of what it’s gonna have to take to process biochar in the future. Brainstorming and building off other peoples ideas. I have to give the whole auger idea to someone else. I just thought of better ways to improve it.

[@mbailey12341]

I thought biochar was raw carbon??? How does it add calcium, phosphorus and other nutrients? Are you sure it’s not just unlocking (or making available) those nutrients that are already in the soil?

[@gerrywalsh6853]

Only the elements that off Gas at certain temperatures will leave so how much and what is left behind is dependent on temperature and time

[@Rhinoch8]

You have to ideally compost it first

[@Rhinoch8]

I would advise against using sewage sludge because of high heavy metal content.

[@mercermouth7571]

The "Wild West" meets "A Space Oddessy" ~ On the one hand, the goal is to create a large-scale industry, sufficient to 'mitigate climate change', incentivized with 'carbon credits' that can intimidate, dominate, and control an industry that discourages small local operations as 'unregulated' and ineffective... On the other hand, operating with limited input quantification, incalculable variables, underlying urgency, and too costly and inefficient to scale up.

[@mikeschatz9153]

This video is counter productive. Please discuss with people who are working in the real world. This woman shows her lake of real world knowledge. This is embarrassing.

[@Rhinoch8]

They are going after the big carbon market, which works through administrative organism that work for certification to emit and sell carbon credits. This is just as necessary than "real world" to direct big investments towards biochar-producing industry in the large scale, reducing costs, and making biochar available at a good price.

Have you looked at Terra Preta ?

[@piotrjasielski]

45:42

[@gaberali1396]

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