Proposed Industrial Biochar Plant

I thought this might amuse. If nothing else it's interesting to see this moving more and more into the mainstream.

75,000 tons a year (to start) is certainly impressive, for salable carbon offset credits and char/byproducts.

It's early days. We'll see if this proposal has legs, or if it's just a shakedown for government grants.

https://financialpost.com/commodities/energy/renewables/north-america-biggest-biochar-plant-canada

Thanks!  I’d like to see a life cycle study on the larger facility.  Article didn’t say much about using the waste heat.  Transporting the material in and out is bound to use a lot of fossil fuels.  I believe there are some smaller community scale facilities operating in Japan.  

Agreed, it's the transportation of feedstock that always sets off my spidey sense. Supposedly this group has been searching the globe for locations where feedstock is close enough to be viable.

I recall maybe 15 years ago (??) there was a guy who built a closed biochar kiln on a semi. He would take the kiln to the feedstock, logging or agricultural slash that would otherwise be burned openly, and leave behind quality char. This was on a fee for service basis. This was before the carbon credits bonanza, so I'm not sure if his venture survived. But it made more sense to me.

Certainly worth biocharing waste materials that would otherwise be burned outright.  

I’m still waiting for scalable biomass energy production that “tithes” back to the land in the form of biochar/ash

There is a fellow on youtube that routinely makes biochar in his woodstove using stainless warming pans.  I’ve got ideas for building a woodstove that produces larger amounts of biochar.  Maybe someday…
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Yes, the kilns on semis idea makes a lot of sense. Localize it.
John S
PDX OR

The location on St Laurence River suggests they will move a lot of material by ship/barge. The current Quebec wildfires possibly are a vast source of material. The timber industry is clambering to get access to the fire-killed, but still usable timber. There is likely lots of residue to be had there, and impetus to manage fuel load in forests not yet burned... And being in a cold climate, the waste heat from this could be completely used up to provide electricity and/or district heating for the city. Timing is certainly coincidental but probably a public relations/marketing windfall for the project.

Our local Del Norte Fire Safe Council is getting a grant that will fund a curtain burner on a trailer, and a small staff to support collecting feedstock and distributing the char. It will be a step up in scale and quality control from our Wild Rivers Permaculture Guild’s Ring of Fire kiln, but I do
wonder if the much higher cost (75-100x) will pay off.

The main constraints seem to be the labor of collecting the feedstock and inoculating and distributing the char (especially mixing in and spreading with compost). I estimated for the ROF kiln burn at my place it took about 60 hrs of labor to collect and 20 person hrs to burn 10yds+ of fuels (w added benefit of wildfire mitigation), which produced 2yds+ of char. The burn itself only took 4hrs, w 6 people each doing 3ish hours of labor helping feed the kiln (rests and sausage cooking occurred as it burned). It took me about 6hrs to hand mix my 1.5yd share (gave the rest to people who helped) into about 6yds of compost.

This last part could be aided by machinery, but most of the collection could only be done by hand, or with machines doing a lot more damage to the forest as they work. I suppose the best mechanized strategy might be to cut swaths of fire breaks on contour, then use those as access paths and maintain the clearings with livestock.

Ben, are you getting a Charboss? I'm envious. One thing that an air curtain burner really cuts down on is the material prep and handling. You can put in lengths up to the size of the firebox, and it will take much larger cross sections than a standard flame cap system. This will mean a lot less double handling of feedstock...as long as you have an appropriate machine to do the grabbing and lifting. I really want to import these to NZ to deal with our slash problem.

It sounds like the county fire safety non profit is getting a Charboss. I am interested in helping make the collection, char inoculation and distribution are as beneficial as possible to as much  land and water and as many people and other living organisms as possible. I think this may be the best place in the continental US to combine abundant woody debris and an abundance of people with wood moving and processing skills that need work.

This is a really interesting development.  Keep us informed of how it works out. It would be wonderful to see more places adopt large scale biochar, both for the soil benefit and for the carbon sequestration.

John S
PDX OR