The Carbon Sink Solution(s)

rc3 preroll music 2021

Herald: Welcome to the "gehacktes from
Hell", we're streaming from the

Bierscheune in Alte Hölle in Brandenburg.
The coming talk, looks at the method of

carbon sinking, a way to limit climate
change. Hans-Peter Schmidt will tell us

how to do this with the help of biochar.
We're really happy to have him as a

speaker because Hans-Peter is a pioneer in
the field of biochar science, and he has

worked on the development of its
technologies and the application.

Following the talk, we have a short Q&A
session from your devices at home. You can

send your questions via Twitter to the
hashtag rc3Hell or via the I.R.C. chat or

the rocket chat at hashtag
rc3-gehacktesfromhell. Later, you can also

meet Hans-Peter in a jitsy room called
Discussion.altehölle.de. And now over to

Hans-Peter.
HP: For 15 years now, I work on methods to

extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
and to sequester the extracted carbon in a

stable form and then soil on sediments.
And we found in many others who work on

the same subject found several methods
that can extract significant amounts of

carbon dioxide. And also methods that can
transform the extracted carbon dioxide

into stable carbon forms that do not
degrade biologically or chemically. And

the Ithaca Institute for which I work also
developed the first carbon sink

certificate, and it can certify and assess
the amount of carbon that are stored in

carbon sinks. And now at the end of 21, we
are the stage that several of these

technologies could be scaled and have to
be scaled to reach the objectives of

climate policy. But this scale up of these
technologies is so massive that it will

have an influence on the geo physics of
our planet and that we have to consider

and those risks we have to sink them now.
Without. Further waiting. To scale climate

technologies, but we need to take care
that the scale up is done sustainably and

and in our talk, I want you to make some
of these points that we will not hopefully

save the climate to get extinguished by
other means and didn't. So did. The

situation is rather clear, and most in the
world, most governments and people are

understood by now that we need to reduce
the emissions to close to zero by 2050.

And and in all scenarios, we should have
reached already the point of highest

emissions by now. But in fact, emissions
still rise. But. Everybody counts on on

emissions reductions to happen rather
soon. So to be honest, we cannot see these

reductions happening in the close future,
but. Let's let's assume emissions will be

reduced, then according to the plan, until
2050, even then, we will need massive

carbon sinks because of the effect of the
CO2 that was already admitted to the

atmosphere and that is not degraded, but
has a global warming effect that continues

for several hundreds and thousands and
thousands of years. So to clean up legacy

emissions, we need to extract carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere and need to

establish carbon sinks. And we know that
if everything goes according to all the

plans of the Paris Treaty and other
decision makers. Then we need to extract

800 billion tons of CO2 from the
atmosphere by the year 2100. So this is

not to balance further emissions. This is
only to balance the effect of the

emissions already occured, but the
technologies that are available to extract

carbon dioxide, they are called the
negative emission technologies. It's

negative because it's positive is when you
emit to somewhere negative would be just

this abstraction. Not a nice name, but
that's what it is. So net technologies are

nature based like afforestation and the
growth of biomass, which in fact is the

way to extract natural carbon dioxide from
the atmosphere. And as long as these

biomass is growing and does not decompose,
carbon is stored. However, when you

transform the biomass carbon by pyrolysis
into a stable form like biochar and

paralytic oiles, this transformed carbon
can be stored for longer times. And that's

what is here in the middle of the biochar
or power organic carbon capture and

storage method, which is partly nature
based and partly persistent and measurable

because you have long term carbon sink
that cannot just go away by accident, like

in a forest fire. There are other means
like enhanced weathering take volcanic

stone powders that can react to
carbonates. And then there is direct air

capture is when when you extract by
adsorption the CO2 and so you filter air

and extract CO2 and transform it then into
something that you can store. So our

specialty is picks the biochar method and
just shortly to show you how this works.

So you have biomass, you heat the biomass
in the absence of air. Up to 400 to 800

degrees and then it's like cooking without
air. And these biomass and then you have

solid residue, which is the biochar and
liquid residue that you can condense from

the gas phase, which is the paralytic oil.
And you still have a permanent gas, which

usually is combusted to drive the whole
process, which is energy neutral. So you

do not need external energy to run this
process. And and then this biochar can be

used, for example in agryculture to
increase yields and to improve soil

quality. And then this makes that you can
grow more biomass that then again, can go

back to to the production of biomass and
then transforming by paralysis by truck

can also be used in industrial products
and in building materials in plastics and

and composite materials where the carbon
does not decompose. Neither. So so this is

in very short what is picks out any carbon
capture and storage. This is a pyrolysis

unit of of a smaller size that can produce
up to something like 1500 tonnes of

biochar per year. So shortly again, how it
looks inside paralysis, so biomass that is

shredded to smaller particles goes into
this screwdriver. And so it's avoided. Any

air can enter this process and then it
goes into this cruel reactor and the

biomass is transported here in this
reactor, which is heated from environment

temperature of 20 degrees up to 600
decrease. And then the biochar is the

solid residue of this cooking. It flows
out of the process, while the other 50

percent of the carbon is in the gas phase,
which is separated here. And then in this

case, all the gases are burned to produce
thermic energy that drives the process and

is then be used for heating purposes.
However, if you do not burn the gases, you

can also condense the gases and use the
liquid off of the process. And the biochar

is looks like this. It's a very porous
material that conserves the biological

structure. Here you have a piece of wood
that is carbonized. It looks like

charcoal. And if you look on the
microscope, you see this enormous porous

structure, which explains a lot of
functions and effects that we see in

biochar. For example, you can impregnate
it was organic fertilizers, and then all

these pores are filled with organic
fertilizers is preserved, so it cannot be

leached out. The soil and plants and
microbes can feed from this conserved

organic fertilizers. So we have an effect
of this biochar on economic systems. But

what I want to talk about today is only
the effect that if you put this biochar to

soil this carbon, which was CO2 in the
atmosphere, which was assimilated by the

biomass which was transformed in the
pyrolysis, to aromatic carbon, which is

this black stuff, this aromatic carbon
cannot be degraded over centuries by

microorganisms. So if you put it to soil,
it is a long term carbon sink. So. To have

a global effect, we need a lot of biomass.
In the European context we could say,

yeah, we use residual biomass leftovers
from food processing or harvest residues

or manure or sewage sludge. So these are
all biomass that could be transformed by

pyrolysis. However, the amount of this
residue carbon is not as much as it could

have a climate effect. We need a lot more
biomass, and it means we have to grow

biomass, especially for the extraction of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the

transformation by pyrolysis. So we have to
combine. Carbon farming systems was picks

or separates any carbon capture and
storage. And there are different methods

that are not just monocultures, highly
intensive production, but these are, what

we call carbon farming systems, like you
can see here. These are several arable. So

you combine wood and crops with arable
crops, or you have this kind of

agroforestry systems that are highly
productive in regard to biomass. Instead

of having just pastries, you can have zero
pastries. So animals range below trees

that produce additional biomass. We would
also need eggy farms that are highly

productive and could be combined to
shellfish and Ardis, which also clean

coastal water from exceeding nutrients.
And so we can see that if we investigate

different farming systems, that in
addition to food production, because we do

not want to replace food production by
biomass production, but in addition to

food production, which is the green bar in
the tropical agroforestry system, we can

produce the same amount of food as now.
But in addition, we can produce biomass

for carbon sequestration. Also in systems
like Tropical Forest Garden, you can have

both. And you can intensify the systems.
However, the suggested eucalyptus

monoculture, as you can see here is would
only be for carbon capture and would not

produce fruit. And as you can see, is not
very efficient anyway. It just doesn't

make much work. And also, marine seaweed
is quite efficient in this regard. Now, if

you come back, if we want now this part,
this green part, this is the carbon sink

part that we need to balance global
temperatures and we know we need 270

billion tonnes of carbon in this carbon
sink. So this is 800 gigatons CO2

equivalent. And what does it mean, if we
would with this message, Paragon carbon

capture and storage deliver 30 % of the
necessary carbon sink. What does it mean

for global resources? So for this to
happen, for this 30% of the minimum

necessary carbon sink, we would need about
100 billion tonnes of biochar and that

gigatons of biochar into 2100. And just to
get an imagination on how much this is,

this is the amount of 1500 of this
Matterhorn mountains. So the volume of one

Matterhorn that you find in the Swiss Alps
multiplied by 1500 was dense biochar. So

just the imagination of how much we need
to extract and sink. And that's only 30%.

And this amount corresponds to a thin
layer of two centimeter of biochar to a

centimeter of biochar on each hectare of
global agricultural land. So we would have

to cover all agricultural land by two
centimeters of biochar, which then will be

dicked or plowed into the soil as a carbon
sink. So it is a massive, massive mess and

it only makes 30 percent of the biochar.
So we would need to produce this amount of

biochar. We would need 190 gigatons of
biomass. And. So this and it's kind of 90

gigatons of biomass. We need to compare to
the global standing biomass. And that's

about 0.8 percent of the global standing
biomass and 0.8 percent of the global

standing biomass would have to be
paralyzed every year from the year 2050 to

2100 to produce the amount of carbon sink.
That's necessary to preserve 30 percent of

the climate. And that would need about he
handed 80000 industrial paralysis plants.

So we calculated and looked and what does
it mean to produce 500000 pyrolysis

industrial pyrolysis plants? We imagine it
could be, or there has to be produced in

chain production like cars. But to reach
the negative emission potential that's

necessary by 2050, we need an exponential
growth of the production of this pyrolysis

units, which would be possible. And you
you see you see here, this is the blue

line. So we have this exponential growth.
And as you can see, we have then the

slowdown of of the growth of absolute
numbers. So the the orange line here, you

see the production numbers per year, so
you have to grow until 2043 to produce

50000 units per year. But then you have to
to slow down the production because we can

only use 400000 pyrolysis units on Earth.
After that, we do not have more biomass to

treat. So we need an exponential growth
because of the severity of the problem of

the problem. And then we need an
exponential growth after 2043 to a steady

state of the production of few plants that
are needed to renew these standing plants.

So this is a very interesting from
economic point of view, and we will see

this in several areas because of the
global economy and global problems and the

global limits of resources that we need.
Exponential growth and growth for several

technologies. And how that will be done.
It's very interesting. That's subject of

today. So, so you saw it's massive. What
would be needed? 400000 plants in one

plant costs about 1.3 million euro, so
that's about 500 billion euro, and that is

not so much in the end, it's less than 50
percent of the annual military spending.

So from an economic point of view, it
would certainly be possible to make it

happen. So more problematic is how can we
make it happen on an economic point of

view? Financially, this is very
attractive, as we can see first, the

production of the industrial units and
then you have a global carbon sink market.

If you calculate a 100 per tonne of CO2
equivalent and we know how much CO2 we

need to extract. So this is a 400 billion
euro markets per year only for carbon sink

credits. So massive and very interested
market. And that's why you see a lot of

financial institutes going already now
into these markets. Well, what do we have

with the risks and side effects? So. The
0.8 percent of the global plant mess that

has to be paralyzed every year, that's
about 0.75 ton biomass per hectare of

agricultural land. So if we extract from
every sector of the world's crop land and

bit less than one ton of biomass, we could
solve the problem so that that's not seem

too much. However, this biomass is
everywhere, and there are now millions of

farmers that all would have to be
convinced to do it. And then we have to

bring the industry close to them so that
they can extract the biomass. So let's say

if 10 percent of agricultural land was
used for biomass production by carbon

farming. So we set aside 10 percent of the
global agricultural land and then we only

need 7.5 tons of biomass per hectare. And
that would be feasible because thanks to

biochar based fertilization, crop
productivity can increase about more than

20 percent. So to have 10 percent aside
would be possible. So let's say. It would,

in theory, be possible to produce the
biomass necessary for the carbon sinks on

the available agricultural land without
decreasing food production. But in the

last five minutes of my talk, I want to
give you another outlook because socially

and environmentally, it's still very much
on the edge to do this huge scaling carbon

by organic carbon storage project, because
we have several other problems on Earth

and not only the climate problem, we have
the biodiversity crisis, other ecosystem

crisis and therefore the Half Earths
project was announced about five years ago

to say that. It is needed that 50 percent
of the Earth's surface is preserved for

nature recovery, and there are, in fact,
quite a lot of governments that agreed to

this program astonishingly. And it has a
lot of support this initiative from Archie

Wilson. You find more information and half
earths project on the website that you see

here below, because that's that's the
point. If we do all this climate action,

we do not have enough land to preserve it
for natural revival. However, we have

technology that's possible. And in the
latest Saudi Arabian solar energy project,

the kilowatt hour was produced at zero
point eighty eight cents. And that means

energy becomes so cheap that we have new
possibilities for technology to produce.

In fact, carbon sinks without plants. So
the Obrist company, they created this

project a fuel, which is methanol factory
that runs entirely on renewable powered

energy, so you have this large solar
panels and then you have here. The

chemistry that's behind. So in short, you
have direct air capture here where you

filter out the CO2 from the atmosphere.
The energy is used for electrolysis that

is done with desalinated water. So they
produce hydrogen from desalinated water,

which the solar energy. And with the CO2
from direct air capture, there is methanol

synthesized. In methanol is a liquid form
of carbon. It's a bit like alcohol, but

just methanol, and which is not toxic,
which can be pumped, which can be

transported, which can be used as a fuel,
and which could also be used as a carbon

sink. So you can find here and when you
have more time, you can go into details.

We calculated the total balance. So for
500000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent

in the carbon sink, so that means we
extract 500000 tons of CO2 from the

atmosphere. We need 11.5 km^2 square
kilometers of solar panels that produce

6000 gigawatt hour of energy. Part of this
energy is used for the direct air capture.

Part of this energy is used for
desalination and electrolysis, which

produces oxygen, and then the hydrogen and
CO2 are synthesized to methanol great

produce some energy that goes back to the
process. We produce also water that also

goes back to the process. And then you
have the carbon sink. And this methanol,

in fact, can be pumped back into old
fossil storages like in the Saudi Arabian

desert. And so we scale this up and. We
would need only 21% of the surface of

Saudi Arabia used for this Methanol carbon
sink technology to sequester the necessary

800 gigatons of CO2 equivalent and pump it
back into abundant fossil oilfields until

2100. And the interesting thing here is
that only. This is only 10 percent of the

surface that would be needed if we do the
same thing with plants and biomass and

where everything works perfectly optimized
without chemical fertilizer, without

irrigation and not counting the risk of
fire. And as a disaster is happening to

the biomass production, there is this
technological solution. I think we could

prepare the biggest, the biggest hack
ever. To turn. The Arabian fossil fuel

producers into carbon sink produces and
pumped back the liquified carbon extracted

from the atmosphere to the fossil
oilfields. Thank you very much.

Herald: So how can we avoid the risk of
deployment of CO2 sinks becoming a cheap

excuse for not pursuing the necessary
reduction of CO2 emissions on the other

hand?
HP: Yeah, this is this is and the main

problem, I think now when we enter this
carbon sink markets, because all the

carbon sinks to the bottom now are used
for emission compensation. And but but we

have no choice. We have to curb the
emissions. So normally policy makers

should defend the compensation of
emissions with carbon sinks because the

carbon sinks we need for the compensation
of legacy emissions of all the CO2 it was

already emitted before now.
Herald: Yes. So how do you estimate the

potential of picks against the background
of increasing interest in biomass for

food, energy and chemical industry?
HP: Yeah, we need all of it. And we will

not have enough of it. And that's why I
presented the possibility to extract

carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, for
the chemical industry, for fuel, for

materials, for plastics and also for
carbon sinks. I think we will not achieve

the protection of our ecosystems and of
the climate with the biomass that we have

on the planet only.
Herald: All right. Actually, just a fourth

question came in. I think we have time for
one more little question. How can we be

sure that Oprah's would be more successful
than an example? Desertec.

HP: And what was the first one?
Herald: How can we be sure that this

operation will be more successful than
this attack?

HP: Yeah, I. The economics are much better
now because solar energy is so much

cheaper than 20 years ago when desetec
started, and the system is more complex

because of decoupling with chemical
industry with carbon sink, and the

necessity is also higher. So I think we we
can achieve this and and desetec is not

dead yet and could continue also towards
more complex systems.

Herald: All right, thank you. Hans-Peter,
thank you very much. I'm saying goodbye to

you in the stream now about everyone is
invited to join further discussion in the

Jitsy room now, which you can reach and
discussion dort alte-hoelle@de Goodbye

from Bierscheune and sieh you in the jitsi
room.

HP: Thank you.

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