Future Energy

The Colour of Carbon: Biochar and Terra Preta

 Source: Next 100 Blog

November was a bit busier than expected, so once again this blog got laid aside in favour of my work.  Lets see if I can keep it going a bit longer this time.

Biochar, a charcoal-like substance made from biomass and used as a soil amendment, has been credited with multiple benefits, including the ability to improve soil fertility, protect water quality, and generate carbon neutral energy. (NRDC)

Over the past year, there have been more than a few articles (and many more blog posts) touting the benefits of biochar as a solution to at least some of our climate change woes.  perhaps the most authoritative source was published in Nature Communications in August this year.  The title - Sustainable Biochar to Mitigate Global Climate Change - suggests the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread hype about the possibilities of biochar.  The authors, Woolf, et. al. estimated the maximum sustainable potential of biochar to mitigate climate change being equal to up to 12% of current anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, i.e. nearly 2 giga tonnes per year.  James Lovelock, the father of the Gaia concept went even further, suggesting:

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast. . . . This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it. (As quoted in Next 100 blog)

The biochar concept certainly has a pedigree thats a bit longer than that of you average offset.  Biochar is believed to have been first used as far back as 450 BC among Amazonian Indians as part of the mix that created Terra Preta, or dark earth in Portuguese.  Even today, thousands of years later, many Terra Preta soils still demonstrate big improvements in soil fertility over the surrounding soils and are reported to be dug up and marketed as superior compost in the Amazon region. (Interestingly, the benefits of Terra Preta have caught the eye of modern gardeners and the web has lots of sites offering direction on making your own biochar.)

Source: Biochar info

But now NRDC has come along to rain on this particular parade.  Despite the glowing quote in biochar's favour at the start of this post, NRDC raises concerns that include:

• Land use conversion and the carbon emissions that can result;
• Loss of biodiversity associated with development of monoculture plantations that might be created to maximize biochar production;
• Fugitive losses of biochar during transport and application;
• Carbon loss from soil disturbance during biochar application;
• Lack of understanding of emissions resulting from biochar production; and
• Difficulty of monitoring and verifying biochar offsets.

The NRDC justifiably seems to be concerned about the unintended impacts once a dollar figure, or more likely, a euro value gets attached to biochar offsets - think ethanol or some recent offsets in China.

The solution that NRDC recommends is U.S. federal funding of $100 to $150 million for five to 10 commercial scale pilot projects.  Looking at the specifics, NRDC suggests that large-scale pyrolosis and gasification units using slow pyrolosis, i.e. at temperatures of approximately 500⁰ C appear to be the most favourable technology.  With respect to feed stocks, and there are many, many possibilities to choose from, they suggest residual biomass that is already somewhat concentrated such as animal manures, sewage sludge, organic municipal solid waste and urban wood residue offer the best candidates.

If you are interested in biochar, its well worth taking a look at.

 

Preparing the U.S. Department of Defense for a Post-Petroleum Era

Source: EVE Online

The Centre for a New American Security recently released its vision for the energy future facing the U.S. Department of Defense.   In Fueling the Future: Preparing the Department of Defense for a Post-Petroleum Era, authors Christine Parthemore and John Nagl provide a concise, pragmatic look at the risks energy poses for U.S. security .....

"Reducing dependence on petroleum will help ensure the long-term ability of the military to carry out its assigned missions — and help ensure the security of the nation ....

• Heavy dependence on large fuel supplies can increase operational vulnerabilities and make fuel supply infrastructure a more valuable target.

• Every dollar increase in the price of petroleum costs DOD up to 130 million additional dollars.  Rising global demand, for instance in China, is increasing the strategic importance of petroleum in ways that could be detrimental to U.S. interests.

• Countries such as Iran and Venezuela could have the largest remaining reserves in a few decades if current production rates hold – and will gain leverage as a result.

• High levels of petroleum consumption are contributing to the changing climate, which can bring destabilizing effects and trigger new security challenges."

...... and the challenges of moving to a non-petroleum fueled armed services.

"To ready America’s armed forces for tomorrow’s challenges, DOD should ensure that it can operate all of its systems on non-petroleum fuels by 2040.  .....  Some estimates indicate that the current global reserve-to-production (R/P) ratio – how fast the world will produce all currently known recoverable petroleum reserves at the current rate of production – is less than 50 years.  ..... Ensuring that DOD can operate on non-petroleum fuels 30 years from today is a conservative hedge against prevailing economic, political and environmental trends, conditions and constraints."

To address the challenge, they propose 12 principles:

1. Set a common energy goal of "managing a smooth transition beyond petroleum over the next 30 years".
2. Establish a clear set of guidelines that help the services and the private sector to understand what sorts of fuels, infrastructure and efficiency technologies will be needed.
3. Plan for an uncertain future.
4. Demand new fuels for old vehicles.
5. continue to increase alternative fuel use at domestic bases.
6. Invest for maximum impact - factoring distribution and infrastructure into decisions about where to invest.
7. Save energy, keep the change - addressing the incentives and dis-incentives built into current budgeting rules and norms.
8. Understand that energy is not free.
9. Promote a shared understanding of the the DOD's energy future with Congress, the Executive Branch and private companies.
10. engage allies in the energy transition.
11. streamline energy management.
12. Plan for the worst.

Whats most interesting for the principles is that they could equally be applied to the country as a whole, guiding the U.S. to a less risky future based on a substantially reduced appetite for petroleum fuels. 

The authors do not appear to even hint at a broader application of the principles they enunciate.  However, given a government even partly focused on governing for the long haul (versus whatever the focus is now - its beyond my understanding) these would be national principles.  I wonder what Tom Friedman would have to say about that?

 

Alternative Energy Equities Research Worth Reading

                                    

In an earlier post, I mentioned that JPMorgan (NYSE: JPM) has established a Climate Change Research sub-section within its larger Global Corporate Research (see Banks Focus on Climate Change Investing, October 25^th, 2007).  As I noted at the time, this research group is producing a steady stream of publicly available reports on the investment issues and opportunities relating to climate change.

Recently curiosity led me to dig around in some of it, looking for something that might be of interest.  Low and behold, one of the reports I came across did indeed stand out.  Although, a bit dated (released June 27^th, 2007), Alternative Energy Strategy: Ways to Play the Renewables Boom, is both interesting and useful. 

The report provides JPMorgan’s model alternative energy portfolio and its accompanying commentary.  Briefly, the analysis follows several themes:

·         Government policy and support is key to the alternative energy boom;

Despite the parallels being communicated by some, the alternative energy sector is fundamentally unlike the tech sector.  Growth of the internet was a private sector phenomenon with the successful technologies being those that won hard-fought battles in the commercial marketplace.  Whereas alternative energy remains extremely dependent on government policy.

·         That being said, the three fundamental factors are improving the commercial potential of key renewable technologies;

Aside from higher oil and electricity prices, these fundamental factors include:

o   Technological advances among some types of renewables;

o   Economies of scale among some technologies in which technological improvements are slow;

o   Efforts to curb climate change.

·         The market for alternative energy will be bifurcated, with a few technologies prospering while the remaining technologies underperform the market.

Based on its research, JPMorgan has revised its model portfolio to include 46 stocks in nine different renewable technologies.  Recognizing the political and technology risks present in this portion of the energy sector, it says:

“We recommend that investor control the risks of abrupt changes in government policies by focusing on companies with international exposure and on technologies that are close to becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuels on an unsubsidized basis.”

On this basis, the bank identifies its “best bets” as stocks relating to Biofuels, Wind and Solar technologies.

While I highly recommend this report, I do note that JPMorgan does not take sustainability issues into account at all in its commentary and conclusions.  As a result, Biofuels, including corn based ethanol make it into their best bets – unjustifiably in my opinion.