Biochar for Energy Plantations

The low productivity of wood from energy plantations is one of the obstacles to the development of energy plantations. Although energy plantation plants such as calliandra can grow on marginal or critical lands, the quality of the soil affects the productivity of the wood produced. This makes it important to improve the quality of the soil of these energy plantations so that they can produce optimal plant productivity. Biochar can be an effective solution for this. Biomass waste that pollutes the environment can be used for biochar production or wood products from these energy plantations can be partly used for biochar production.

Biochar and energy plantations are two positive things for climate solutions. Energy plantations for the production of carbon neutral biomass fuels such as wood pellets, while biochar is to improve soil quality, save fertilizer use and so on and as carbon sequestration / carbon sinks that are carbon negative. The biochar solution for energy plantations will maximize CO2 reduction and sustainability efforts. The vastness of energy plantations is because they are pursuing the target of producing biomass fuel quantities which are comparable to land use and also comparable to the use of biochar. This is so that industrial-scale biochar production is needed to support this, read more details here. The more damaged the land or critical lands are, the greater the need for biochar. And the production of large-capacity biochar has the opportunity to get carbon credit or BCR (Biochar Carbon Removal) credit which can be a driving force for the growth of biochar industries. 

Critical and marginal lands should be prioritized as energy plantation lands. This will not only restore land quality but will also provide added value to land use and efforts to prevent disasters. Land legality is also an important concern. Land must be clear and clean, meaning free from disputes so that it does not cause problems in the future. Furthermore, industrial forest plantation land (HTI) which is indeed in accordance with its designation as a production forest can also be used for energy plantation land. How damaged or degraded the land is will determine how much biochar is used. Meanwhile, the creation of energy plantations from land conversion from protected forests / conservation forests to production forests should be prohibited, because instead of saving the environment, it will actually have a greater negative impact on the environment. So opening forest land (deforestation) for energy plantations is not recommended at all.

Urgency of Biochar Production Industrial Capacity

The provision or application of biochar to agricultural land follows the 4Rs rule, namely the right source (appropriate biochar raw material), right place (appropriate application area), right rate (appropriate dosage) and right timing (appropriate time). The physical and chemical properties of biochar differ depending on the raw material and production process. By following the 4R rules, biochar performance can be maximized. The effect of biochar on plants will be clearly visible (significant) when the 4R rules are met. With a dose / rate reaching 20 tons / ha (depending on the influencing condition factors), the need for biochar is also large. This is why biochar products are rarely sold online, namely because of the large volume.

Unlike soil amendments such as compost, the effects of biochar can be felt for quite a long time or for several types of agricultural crops, namely not only in one planting season, but repeatedly. This also makes the provision or application of biochar not as frequent as compost. And in the end, of course, the economic aspect is a determining parameter whether biochar makes agricultural businesses more profitable or not. The price of biochar on the market is an important concern for users or farmers.

The lack of biochar production in Indonesia is currently a barrier to biochar application in large agricultural lands, even when farmers' awareness of biochar is also increasing. This is the driving force for the importance of adequate biochar production, especially industrial capacity. Only with adequate biochar production can biochar application in agricultural lands or degraded lands be carried out optimally. The urgency of industrial capacity biochar production is even greater, especially when the biochar production also gets carbon credit, of course this will be even more interesting. 

Biochar and Food & Energy Security

As the population increases, so does the need for food and energy. This is why food and energy production must also be increased. Increasing food production is closely related to the quality and quantity of land. However, although the quantity of land is very large, its quality tends to decline so that plant productivity automatically also decreases. The decline in land quality or land damage occurs on very large areas of land up to millions of hectares. With the area of ​​sub-optimal and degraded lands reaching hundreds of millions of hectares consisting of 122.1 million hectares of dry land; 8 million hectares of post-mining land; 24.3 million hectares of critical land; a total of around 154.4 million ha, it can be said that the potential loss of food products also reaches millions of tons. Meanwhile, damaged land will be further damaged if no repair efforts are made. Efforts to upgrade or improve the quality of this land should be an important priority in efforts to achieve food and energy security.

Biochar application is a solution for improving these lands. Raw materials for biochar production are also very abundant, including dry palm oil EFB of around 30 million tons/year, bagasse of 2 million tons/year, corn cobs of 5 million tons/year, cassava stalks of 3 million tons/year, waste wood of 50 million tons/year, rice husks of 15 million tons/year, cocoa shells and so on. With the application of biochar, agricultural productivity can increase by an average of 20% or even up to 100%. If applied on a macro or national scale, say with a 20% increase in production, for example, rice production will increase to 36 million tons/year from the previous 30 million tons/year, corn will increase to 18 million tons/year from the previous 15 million tons/year, crude palm oil or CPO to 60 million tons/year from the previous 50 million tons/year. This will save land use so that the opening of forest land for food crops and (bio)energy such as food estates may not be necessary or at least slow it down. But why until now has biochar not received attention and been used as a solution?

In addition, biochar production with pyrolysis will also produce a number of by-products that can be used for energy applications or others, as in the diagram above. Many agro-industries require drying in their production processes, so this is an additional advantage of using pyrolysis technology for biochar production. While from the environmental aspect, biochar is also a carbon sequestration so that it is a climate solution and can get carbon credit. Likewise in waste management, because the raw material for biochar is biomass waste from agriculture, plantations and forestry, even from organic waste, the pyrolysis and biochar business is also a solution to this problem.   

Optimizing Pyrolysis and Biochar in the Palm Oil Industry

Indonesia's CPO production currently reaches around 50 million tons per year with a land area of ​​around 17.3 million hectares. This means that the average CPO production per hectare is only 2.9 tons or per million hectares produces 2.9 million tons. If biochar is used and there is a 20% increase, it means there is an increase of 10 million tons of CPO per year and this is equivalent to saving around 3.5 million hectares of land, or the use of biochar will slow down forest clearing (deforestation) for palm oil plantations.

The average speed of Indonesian palm oil plantation area is 6.5% per year or equivalent to about 1 million hectares per year for the last 5 years, while the increase in palm oil fruit production or FFB (fresh fruit bunches) is only 11% on average. Even the largest expansion of palm oil land occurred in 2017, which increased by 2.8 million hectares. By opening 1 million hectares of forest, national CPO production only increased by 11%, while without the need to open forests, namely with the application of biochar, there could be a 20% increase in productivity. And the 20% increase in FFB yield (fresh fruit bunches) using biochar is a low estimate.

With the number of palm oil mills in Indonesia reaching more than 1000 units and tens of millions of tons of biomass waste, especially empty palm fruit bunches (EFB), the volume of biochar production produced is certainly very large. In addition, pyrolysis technology can replace combustion technology which is generally used in palm oil mills to produce steam for electricity production and sterilization of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) in CPO production. With pyrolysis raw materials using palm oil tankos and being able to replace palm kernel shells, 100% of palm kernel shells (PKS) can be sold or exported. The sale of palm kernel shells or PKS (palm kernel shells) will certainly provide additional attractive benefits for the palm oil company. Palm kernel shells or PKS are the main competitors of wood pellets in the global biomass market.

In addition, the use of biochar also saves fertilizer use and the highest operational cost on oil palm plantations is fertilizer so this is very relevant. Tens of billions of costs spent on fertilizer can be reduced by using biochar, especially since the biochar comes from its own waste so that it will automatically become a solution for biomass waste management. Including biopesticides and liquid organic fertilizers can also be produced from the pyrolysis process. Carbon credit is the next business potential. This is because the application of biochar to the soil for agriculture or plantations is an effort for carbon sequestration / carbon sink.

The benefits that can be obtained from this biochar carbon credit are also large, even globally biochar carbon credit ranks first or more than 90% in Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) recorded in cdr.fyi. However, there are indeed many large biochar producers who do not sell their carbon credits because of the methodological requirements of standard carbon companies such as Puro Earth and Verra, and these biochar producers are comfortable with their biochar sales business, especially since these producers have existed (established) since before carbon credits were available for biochar.    

Maximizing the Rate of CO2 Absorption from the Atmosphere Based on Biomass

Maximizing the rate of CO2 absorption from the atmosphere is very important considering the rate of addition of CO2 concentration to the atmosphere is not comparable to the rate of CO2 absorption. This is what makes the CO2 concentration continue to increase. To balance this speed, a strategy is needed to increase the rate of CO2 absorption. The use of biomass will be very effective and provide multiple benefits for human life. 

CO2 from the atmosphere needs to be captured through biomass production through the process of photosynthesis in plants. Fast-growing species of plants that have high photosynthesis rates are needed for this. Furthermore, biomass, especially wood from fast-growing species of plants, is used as raw material for biochar. Furthermore, biochar is used to improve soil fertility (soil amendment) in various types of agricultural and forestry plants.

Biochar production with slow pyrolysis will also produce excess heat, syngas and biooil that can be used as energy sources. The benefits of biochar production will be obtained from the sale of biochar, the sale of carbon credits and the use of slow pyrolysis by-products. With conditions like this, efforts to increase the speed of CO2 absorption from the atmosphere should be increased. How fast and how much CO2 volume can be absorbed will depend on the type of fast growing species used, the area of ​​planting and the capacity of biochar production.

Biochar or Biocoal Production?

Biochar and biocoal production are basically one breath. Biochar production with full pyrolysis while biocoal with half/mild pyrolysis (torrefaction). The purpose of torrefaction/mild pyrolysis is to increase its energy content and make it hydrophobic so it is called biocoal. While the purpose of full pyrolysis is to produce stable biocarbon material so that it does not decompose in the soil for hundreds or even thousands of years and improve soil fertility so as to increase plant productivity (agriculture and forestry). 

Current biochar applications are mainly for agriculture and biochar production will produce excess heat, syngas and biooil as energy sources. While biocoal only focuses on energy. The benefits of biochar production are obtained from the sale of biochar, the sale of carbon credits and the utilization of by-products (full) pyrolysis. While the benefits of biocoal are only from the sale of biocoal itself.

The selection or development of a business will be related to business readiness (market, technology, investment, etc.) and other benefits, namely benefits in the social and environmental sectors.