Local Man Paints Everything White

"Claims he can reverse climate change" 

 

A friend of mine at the Climate Foundation is keen on marine cloud brightening to refreeze the Arctic, which could potentially arrest the meandering Rossby Waves that have been churning car soups and igniting wildfires all over the globe. My concern with that kind of geoengineering has always been its potential for unintended consequences, such as termination shock when you stop the treatment, for whatever reason. I have always thought that enlisting self-reinforcing natural processes rather than inventing man-made patches is a better way to go. That is what happened when Franklin Roosevelt planted trees in 1934.

The Great Plains Shelterbelt (or Prairie States Forestry Project) was a massive federal initiative, begun during the Great Depression, intended to arrest the Dust Bowl by planting windbreaks—more than 220 million trees by 1942, across a 100-mile-wide, 1,300-mile-long green belt from Canada to Northern Texas, covering about 18,600 square miles. Alongside tree planting, CCC and WPA recruits led by Raphael Zon at the US Forest Service used horse-drawn and back-breaking terracing, contour plowing, and keyline techniques to slow runoff, encourage water retention, and regenerate soil. Roosevelt was the driving political force, arm-twisting Green Belt dollars into New Deal authorization bills.

I told my friend that I had some direct experience with albedo brightening from hitchhiking my way through the Aegean islands as a youth and noticing everything was whitewashed, including the streets. Today I am working with some asphalt engineers on calcium additives to bamboo pyrolysis that can make whitened biochar pavements — superior in every way to their fossil-fuel-derived predecessors. Let’s paint everything white!

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This was how Father Gaspar de Carvajal, scribe to Francisco de Orellana, described the vast Amazonian city complexes and wide causeways his lost expedition encountered near the Rio Negro in 1542:

That was a wonderful thing to see: Even though we went past fleeing and could not examine the place or know what was there, or anything of the peoples in those regions, according to the disposition of what we saw, the interior must be populated much as what we had seen, and thus, this area . . . we must say is “grandísimo.”

There were many roads here that entered into the interior of the land, very fine highways . . . there could be seen some very large cities that glistened in white. This, the land, is as good, as fertile, and as normal in appearance as our Spain . . . where much wheat may be harvested and all kinds of fruit trees may be grown. Besides this, it is suitable for the breeding of all sorts of livestock, because on it there are many kinds of grass, just as in our Spain, such as wild marjoram and thistles of a colored sort and scored, and many other very good herbs. The woods of this country are groves of evergreen oaks and plantations of cork trees bearing acorns (for we ourselves saw them) and groves of hard oak. The land is high and makes rolling savannas, the grass not higher than up to the knees, and there is a great deal of game of all sorts.

When I quoted Carvajal in my 2009 book, The Biochar Solution: Carbon Farming and Climate Change, I opined:

That passage could as well describe the vista that now stretches in front of us; the path we can take if we so choose: carbon-negative cities, practicing sustainable, bioregionalist agriculture, in a landscape of cultivated ecologies, in millennial balance with the orbit and precession of Earth.

Whether such a grand vision of a Great White Way is feasible (and actually, Zebra stripes might be more efficient at cooling a cityscape than white is) is not speculation. Urban redesign works in the real world, even at considerable scale, but there is a lot of inertia in the system still going in the direction of collapse. At what point can you stand in front of a tractor tire rolling downhill and not only stop it, but push it back up? I think you have to be still pretty close to the top of the hill to do that. So the question is: where are we on the hill? I've been asking that for 40 years, but it doesn't stop me from jumping out in front of the tire.

I imagine that, like a matador facing a charging bull, I would step aside from the rolling tire at the last moment and poke it as it goes by, forcing it to roll over and come to rest. How I would get it back up the hill is still an open question.

Biochar to the Rescue

Last month Hansjörg Lerchenmüller from Biochar Europe presented the Biochar Market Report at the Green Carbon Webinar Series. (Visit www.greencarbonwebinar.org for free registration to future talks).

Lerchenmüller related:

What is exciting in the last 12 to 18 months is that the markets are really in transition. And if we look at it (image of pyramid), we have in the center the biochar. And we have three applications for highly aromatized biochar… the more traditional side, that is, the use as charcoal produced in Europe—and in Europe you always produce charcoal with usage of the energy [cogeneration] otherwise it's totally cost uncompetitive. The other use is the metallurgical industry and the third is the carbon preserving applications.

And we have a couple of trends that change these markets. So there's a clear trend to use less charcoal for barbecue and more gas. Then there's another trend … there’s pressure on imported charcoal due to EUDR/RED [regulations]…. Then if the ETS price goes up [on the EU Emissions Trading System, a “cap-and-trade” market] or the fossil coal price goes up, that moves biochar into the metallurgical industry. And last but not least, the carbon credit price. If that goes up, it will move biochar to the carbon-preserving application. So when we talk about biochar markets, it's important to understand that there is movement between these three corners of the triangle and this will continue to keep evolving because these parameters will change over time.

Last week, my co-author Kathleen Draper and I had a paper accepted for a forthcoming textbook on Biochar for Latin American Development. In many ways, the paper was a seventh-year update on our book, BURN: Using Fire to Cool the Earth. In Burn, as in the paper, we focused on the non-agricultural applications for biochar that seemed most promising to scale carbon dioxide removal (CDR). Most estimates for biochar’s CDR potential place it at around 2-5 GtCO2e/y (gigatons CO2 equivalent drawdown annually—the atmosphere has some 3000 tons of excess CO2 created during the industrial era that will remain for centuries unless physically removed). Those estimates are based entirely on agriculture and forestry. If you look at the entire potential market for biochar, widening the scope of available feedstocks to non-agriculturally-suited sources like unrecyclable plastics, seaweed, and sewage, the applications for biochar would have a CDR potential 10 times higher—> 50 GtCO2e/y. Contrast that with the human contributions to greenhouse gases today: also 50 GtCO2e/y. If you can cut the human contribution — cut pollution — while simultaneously scaling natural sinks like biochar, keylined shelterbelt forests, and marine permaculture (kelp forests), we could restore Earth’s climate to pre-industrial Holocene within present lifetimes.

That is tipping the tire on its side.

A circular carbon economy can link process steps in ways that are locally sensitive to available biomasses, transportation distances, optimal plant design, and value chains to contribute to regional bioeconomies. That is the part that interests development agencies in Latin America. 

Exergy Exigency

“Exergy” is a concept from thermodynamics that relates to the maximum practical work that can be extracted from a system as it reaches equilibrium with its surroundings. By using exergy analysis, urban planners design more efficient buildings, district heating/cooling systems, and energy distribution networks; businesses capture and utilize low-grade waste heat from industrial processes or power generation, integrating that into district heating systems or other valuable applications; and water managers optimize water treatment, distribution, and reuse, reducing energy consumption and net system losses. Exergy can inform the design of more efficient transportation networks, including integrating electric vehicles and optimizing public transit systems. It supports a circular carbon model by cascading energy and material use, eliminating waste, and reversing climate change

Examples of non-agricultural applications for biochar we gave in our paper included:

• Biochar-infused Concrete

• Fillers

• Aggregates

• Cement

• Mortars and Plasters

• Road Surfacing

• Stormwater Runoff

• Carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) wraps

• Insulation

• Wallboard

• SIPs

• Roofing Materials

• Biochar-based Flooring

• Carbon Fuel Cell

• Green Hydrogen

• Batteries and Supercapacitors

• Solar Panels

• Carbon Caskets

• Electronics

• Microbial Fuel Cells

• EMI Shielding Materials

• Carbon Nanotubes

• Flexible Electronics

• Sporting Goods

• Tires

• Desalination Membranes

• Solar Refrigeration

• HAB Filtration

• Industrial Filters

• Catalysts

• Kitty Litter

There are many more. Lerchenmüller showed a slide of the industry’s growth since 2015. 

 

Germany, the Nordics, and Austria/Switzerland lead the way.

 

The rate of growth for the EU biochar market today (from 2020 to 2025) is approximately 41.64% per year. The doubling time at this growth rate is about two years. At that current doubling rate, it would take approximately 26 years for the EU biochar market to reach one billion tons. Currently, EU biochar buyers are removing 200,000 tons CO2/y. By 2050, they could be removing nearly 3 billion tons annually — 3 GtCO2e/y. That, despite the bizarre reverse incentives being erected by many governments, which are throwing billions—even trillions—of dollars and euros at hairbrained schemes to help fossil companies pad their golden parachutes, scale up DACCS (direct air capture of CO2. a.k.a. artificial trees), and expand BECCS (monoculture GMO trees to burn for energy, a less-than-neutral CO2 mitigation), particularly for the two-thirds world as an export crop (economic capture).

Yet, even without perverse subsidies, biochar is winning the race, at least in Europe. Even against small modular nuclear reactors, biochar is winning the race to co-generate electricity and process heat faster, cheaper and without exposing us all to cancer and birth defects for thousands of years.

 

The urgent need to reverse climate change and restore the chemistry of the atmosphere and ocean will set much of the agenda for human civilization in the 21st century. Identifying feasible solutions for reducing and removing greenhouse gas emissions will be essential. Much has already been written about the potential role of biochar as a soil amendment and for managing biomass waste. Very little has been grasped of biochar’s many non-agricultural applications. Rather than take a “cradle-to-grave” approach, we need “cradle to cradle”— the circular and sequential carbon cascades offered by biochar.

 

Sources

Bates, Albert, and Kathleen Draper. Burn: using fire to cool the earth. Chelsea Green Publishing, 2019.

Carvajal, Gaspar de, Pedro de Almesto, Martín de Saavedra y Guzmán, and Alonso de Rojas. "Descubrimiento del río de las Amazonas." Library of Seville, 1545.

Dickenson, J., J.T. Medina (editor). The discovery of the Amazon. (American Geographical Society special publication 17, 1934: republication of edited second printing, 1935.(Translated by BT Lee, edited by HC Heaton)). Dover Publications Inc., New York: 1988.

Odum, Howard T., and Elisabeth C. Odum. "The prosperous way down." Energy 31, no. 1 (2006): 21-32.

 

 

Meanwhile, let’s end these wars. We support peace in the West Bank and Gaza and the efforts to cease the war in Ukraine immediately. Global Village Institute’s Peace Thru Permaculture initiative has sponsored the Green Kibbutz network in Israel and the Marda Permaculture Farm in the West Bank for over 30 years. It will continue to do so with your assistance. We aid Ukrainian families seeking refuge in ecovillages and permaculture farms along the Green Road and work to heal collective trauma everywhere through the Pocket Project. You can read about it on the Global Village Institute website (GVIx.org). I appreciate your support

And speaking of resettling refugees, did you know? A study by Poland’s National Development Bank found that the influx of Ukrainians added between 0.5% and 2.5% to GDP growth and paid more in taxes than they received in benefits.

Could you help me get my blog posted every week? All Patreon donations and Blogger, Substack and Medium subscriptions are needed and welcomed. You are how we make this happen. Your contributions can be made to Global Village Institute, a tax-deductible 501(c)(3) charity. PowerUp! Donors on Patreon get an autographed book off each first press run. Please help if you can.

#RestorationGeneration.

When humans are locked in a cage, the Earth continues to be beautiful. Therefore, the lesson for us is that human beings are not necessary. The air, soil, sky and water are still beautiful without you. So, when you step out of the cage, please remember that you are guests of the Earth, not its hosts.

We have a complete solution. We can restore whales to the ocean and bison to the plains. We can recover all the tremendous old-growth forests. We possess the knowledge and tools to rebuild savannah and wetland ecosystems. Coral reefs rebuilt with biorock build beaches faster than the seas are rising. It is not too late. All of these great works of nature are recoverable. We can have a human population sized to harmonize, not destabilize. We can have an atmosphere that heats and cools just the right amount, is easy on our lungs and sweet to our nostrils with the scent of ten thousand flowers. All of that beckons. All of that is within reach.

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