Sustainable biochar to mitigate global climate change

By Dominic Woolf, J. Amonette, F. Street-Perrott, Johannes Lehmann, S. Joseph. Nature Communications, 2010

2,437 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Production of biochar (the carbon (C)-rich solid formed by pyrolysis of biomass) and its storage in soils have been suggested as a means of abating climate change by sequestering carbon, while simultaneously providing energy and increasing crop yields. Substantial uncertainties exist, however, regarding the impact, capacity and sustainability of biochar at the global level. In this paper we estimate the maximum sustainable technical potential of biochar to mitigate climate change. Annual net emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitrous oxide could be reduced by a maximum of 1.8 Pg CO2-C equivalent (CO2-Ce) per year (12% of current anthropogenic CO2-Ce emissions; 1 Pg=1 Gt), and total net emissions over the course of a century by 130 Pg CO2-Ce, without endangering food security, habitat or soil conservation. Biochar has a larger climate-change mitigation potential than combustion of the same sustainably procured biomass for bioenergy, except when fertile soils are amended while coal is the fuel being offset.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Global and Planetary Change, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7d6c034180bd22d6d45a91eb1ebab7407584bf12

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Environmental Engineering

In Global and Planetary Change

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Citations in the corpus

Effects of biochar application on root traits: a meta‐analysis (2017, background): “Biochar is characterized by stable and recalcitrant organic C with an extremely low decomposition rate and hence has been selected to increase soil C sequestration and climate change mitigation (Marris, 2006; Lehmann, 2007; Laird et al., 2009; Woolf et al., 2010).”
Influence of production conditions on the yield and environmental stability of biochar (2013, positive): “The global potential for sustainable global biochar deployment has been recently analysed by Woolf et al.[3] , results showed that net emissions of GHGs could be reduced by as much as 1.8 Gt CO 2 –”
Microwave pyrolysis of rice straw to produce biochar as an adsorbent for CO2 capture (2015, background): “Production of biochar and its storage in soils have been suggested as a means of abating climate change by sequestering carbon, while simultaneously providing energy and increasing crop yields [37].”
More plant growth but less plant defence? First global gene expression data for plants grown in soil amended with biochar (2015, background): “A consequential reduction in global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases by up to 12% has been proposed, (Woolf et al., 2010), but the wide scale use of biochar application is controversial, since much remains unknown on the long-term impacts in managed and natural ecosystems.”
Removal of arsenic, methylene blue, and phosphate by biochar/AlOOH nanocomposite (2013, background): “When applied to soils as an amendment, biochar can significantly improve soil fertility, enhance soil nutrient and water holding capacity, increase crop production, and reduce emissions of other greenhouse gases [11,12].”
Biochar production by sewage sludge pyrolysis (2013, background): “to improve soil productivity [5], remediate contaminated soils [6] and mitigate climate change [7,8].”
Cost‐benefit analysis of using biochar to improve cereals agriculture (2015, background): “Published attempts to quantify the emission mitigation potential of biochar are complex and incorporate numerous parameters specific to the biochar scenario being assessed, such as feedstock sources, production technologies, fossil energy displacement, fertilizer use avoidance, and transportation (L”
Negative emissions—Part 2: Costs, potentials and side effects (2018, background): “…in studies of future biochar applications rising from 1–1.8 GtCO2 yr −1 in 2030 (Lomax et al 2015, Paustian et al 2016, Pratt and Moran 2010, Griscom et al 2017), 1.8–4.8 GtCO2 yr −1 in 2050 (Powell and Lenton 2012, Smith 2016, Moore et al 2010), and 2.6– 4.8 GtCO2 yr −1 in 2100 (Woolf et al 2010).”