A research team including Clark Atlanta University, Georgia Institute
of Technology, the U.S. Department of Energy National Renewable Energy
Laboratory, Scientific Carbons Inc. and Envirotech Inc. are producing
hydrogen from biomass while sequestering 25%, by weight, of carbon
in
the material in a demonstration project in Georgia. The group says
the sequestration of the carbon in the output of this process is
permanent.
The resulting carbon, produced with USDA funding, is highly absorbent
and can be combined with other products in the process to form a
slow-release
nitrogen fertilizer. That fertilizer, according to the group, can be
used to offer verifiable carbon sequestration by agriculture while
increasing
farm income and crop yields. The idea is to use the sequestered carbon
as a carrier for the nitrogen and as a soil amendment, preventing
harmful
runoff of farm chemicals.
The work is the culmination of a two-year research program. However,
the work was also simply a demonstration project showing the potential
of the technology. This is just an early project in the longer-term
effort to create a commercially viable product. Scientific Carbons Inc.
is seeking partners to carry the program forward. If the project were
to reach a commercial stage it would offer farmers the opportunity to
benefit from the move to sequester carbon as part of the worldwide effort
to slow global warming.
-The
Consortium for Agricultural Soil Mitigation of Greenhouse Gases
The wide spread use of charcoal as a fertilizer media on which
plant nutrients can be absorbed has a long history in Japan and Asia.
Historical large-scale use of charcoal in the Amazon produced sustainable
agriculture, which lasted for thousands of years until the arrival of
Europeans. The renewal of this practice could offer substantial opportunities
for long-term removal of the carbon from the atmospheric pool. New methods
for charcoal manufacture allow the cost effective production of hydrogen,
bio-oil and other co-products from agricultural, forestry, and waste
biomass. Additionally charcoal holds out the promise of being able to
scrub carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide from fossil fuel
exhaust while simultaneously producing a nitrogen enriched carbon fertilizer
and fuel cell grade hydrogen. Research work to demonstrate this technology
is being conducted by
EPRIDA at the University of Georgia and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
RENEWABLE HYDROGEN,
HIGH VOLUME CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND A NITROGEN FERTILIZER OFFER A SUSTAINABLE
FUTURE
The largest use of hydrogen in the world is to manufacture nitrogen
fertilizer. Large-scale production of industrial nitrogen fertilizer
consumes non-renewable natural gas or coal. One renewable alternative
is to take the leaves, bark and other non-essential biomass and return
it into the soil. Unfortunately, the bio-degradable carbon in the leaves
and plant material breaks down and in three years is back in the atmosphere
as carbon dioxide.
The idea of returning leaves, bark and other non-essential biomass
to the soil is a good one, but before we do, the hydrogen needs to be
harvested and used to manufacture nitrogen fertilizer. This would represent
an integrated agri-business cycle. The development of this hydrogen
infrastructure could allow for a natural growth of supplying hydrogen
for other uses as demand increases. The carbon can be converted into
an enriched carrier, which provides many benefits. Rich black soils
provide a good visual example of naturally sequestered carbon. Billions
of tons of this almost permanently sequestered form of carbon have been
created by lightning strikes starting forest and range fires. Charcoal
from hundreds of thousands of years ago, still exists while the original
plant matter long ago decomposed. The carbon char also returns essential
trace elements back to the soil. A significant benefit is that char
is highly adsorbent, probably more so than anything else in the soil.
This lower temperature produced char binds nutrients and keeps the valuable
compounds close at hand until the roots deplete the surrounding soil
concentrations, then naturally and slowly, release materials from the
inner pore structures to maintain equilibrium in local chemical concentrations.
This makes it a great medium for returning nutrients to the soil.
-Slow-Release Sequestering
Fertilizer
The Case for
Burying Charcoal —Research shows that pyrolysis
is the most climate-friendly way to consume biomass.
Simpler
Way To Counter Global Warming Explained: Lock Up Carbon In
Soil And Use Bioenergy Exhaust Gases For Energy.
Soil
erosion, energy scarcity, excess greenhouse gas: All
answered through regenerative carbon management.
Compost is great, but new bio-based process yields hydrogen and super-stable
carbon as charcoal soil booster.
Make Renewable Fertilizer from Wind
The total, viable, wind resource (Class 4 and Class 5) in the Dakotas
is greater than the current U.S. electric power consumption of 550 GW.
The average cost of wind energy in Class 4 sites (where, wind speeds
average 7-7.5 m/s, or 16 mph, for 28% of the time) was $0.073/kWhr in
2000 for a 600 kW machine, and the NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab)
expects this cost to be below $0.04/kWhr by 2008, which would make it
competitive with conventional energy sources without government subsidy.
Unfortunately, only a miniscule fraction of the potential wind
power is needed in the Dakotas, and this huge resource is about 600
miles from Chicago and 1000 miles from St. Louis. For power transmission
over distances greater than 60 miles, above-ground HVDC becomes more
cost effective than AC, but neither is very cost effective for distances
greater than about 400 miles. High-voltage DC Superconducting (HVDC-SC)
transmission lines may allow the enormous wind resource in the Dakotas
to be transmitted efficiently to Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, Detroit,
and farther. A substantial increase in funding in the development of
several promising options is needed, but even before this technology
is developed this huge wind resource can be utilized.
Some have suggested the wind farms be used to produce hydrogen,
but liquefying hydrogen for transport is very inefficient, and piping
hydrogen long distances is very expensive. About two-thirds of our current
hydrogen production (from natural gas, which is a very limited resource
in North America) is used to make ammonia and nitrates for fertilizers.
It makes more sense to first use wind farms in the Dakotas to produce
all the renewable fertilizer
our nation needs (this would take about 250 GW of peak wind power),
as fertilizers are much more easily stored and transported (by rail)
than hydrogen. (Of course, these renewable
fertilizers would be somewhat more expensive than current
fertilizers, but perhaps that would limit their use enough to save the
world's coral reefs.) Then, additional power can be transmitted to Chicago
(and other cities along the way) via HVDC-SC transmission lines. As
this technology develops, cities farther away could begin to be powered
by the wind.
-David Doty, president and chief engineering scientist, Doty
Scientific, Inc.
