David Wardle vs. Carbonscape - a Battle on Biochar

By Marie Puddu
For every argument, there are always two sides. In schools, debates have been a part of every student's life. To better understand the argument, people should always see all angles. The more we look at biochar and how it will affect our environment, the better the perspective we get of it. An excerpt of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that "Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press."
So here we are, giving everyone a chance to state their points of view towards biochar. I believe "scientists" are always the first ones to squawk their observations and opinions because they are always the first ones to discover most scientific occurrences. But I also believe that at a time like this when we are past our limit on greenhouse emmisions, we should try almost anything to find a solution to this environmental crisis.
BIOCHAR SKEPTICS
Almost two years ago, David Wardle of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences published the results of an experiment done within a ten-year period in Sweden. Wardle is an ecologist who stated simply that biochar is no way to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. How? In the ten-year controlled experiment whose results were acquired in 2006, Wardle and his team scattered hundreds of bags of mixed leaf litter and charcoal, pure charcoal, and pure natural leaf litter in various sites in Sweden. At the end of this experiment, they found out that the bag with the charcoal and leaf litter mixture had shrunk and lost the carbon content within the first 2 years.
What does this mean? Wardle argued that charcoal is indeed a stable CO2 trap, but just like most decaying organic matter is it also a good source of food for soil microbes. Therefore instead of keeping the stable carbon dioxide within it, by unintentionally feeding the microbes, it is actually causing a faster decay, a faster carbon absorption, and a faster carbon release back into the atmosphere from the soil.
The experiment results and conclusions sound convincing. If this is the case, then why even use biochar? It seems that by burying charcoal in the soil, we are making the environment's condition even worse than it already is, by contributing more greenhouse gas.
But a closer look at Wardle's experiment reveals that there's something amiss.
SUPPORTERS OF BIOCHAR
In Wardle's experiment, as a matter of fact, the bags of leaf litter and charcoal were NOT buried in the soil. This is probably their biggest mistake. Supporters of biochar argue that in order for biochar to be effective in preventing the release of more CO2 in the atmosphere, IT HAS TO BE BURIED IN THE SOIL, NOT KEPT IN BAGS AND SCATTERED ON THE TOP OF THE SOIL. The key is to trap the CO2 inside the earth instead of emitting it forcefully in the atmosphere, just like energy plants do when burning fossil fuels.
Probably the best known supporter of biochar production is Carbonscape. A startup company that began operations back in 2006, Carbonscape was already "chosen as the judges top choice from over 300 companies in the global FT (Financial Times UK) Climate Change Challenge competition." Their motto is to help the air breathe a little easier.
Carbonscape's solution to an excess of atmospheric CO2 is to use microwave technology to burn the plant matter and convert it into biochar. This pyrolytic process, according to them, locks carbon away for thousands of years. Ironically, the discovery leading to this method has been recalled by Chris Turney, founder of Carbonscape. Chris is a British geologist and currently holds a Chair in Physical Geography at the University of Exeter, UK. He said that when he was a boy he accidentally microwaved a potato for 4o minutes. It turned into charcoal. Now his company uses microwave technology to produce massive amounts of biochar.
The ideals of Carbonscape and other biochar supporters is to sequester, as soon as they can, and in the most inexpensive way possible, greenhouses gases such as CO2 with the help of nature and technology. Even better, is that the use of biochar can keep away excess carbon for millennia. They have actually developed large-scale industry equipment that is geared towards biochar production. And they're still growing.
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
They say people usually regret what happened to them when it's already too late to rectify the situation. We should always give skeptics the benefit of the doubt for questioning a possible waste of effort, if biochar is something we don't need. But we should also applaud the efforts of those who try their best to help improve the situation of our environment. It's a lot like caring for ourselves and the generations to come.