The light came on for Josiah Hunt, CEO of Pacific Biochar, in 2008. He had graduated from the University of Hawaii Hilo with a BS in Agroecology and Environmental Quality in 2004 and was working for a company called Landscape Ecology, when everything changed.
“I was sitting on the couch one day, and I read this article in National Geographic,” he recalled. The entire issue was focused on the ongoing problem of soil degradation and the threat to the world food supply. He read about the potential for charcoal as a long-lived stable source of organic matter that could be added to restore agricultural soil.
He found out it could improve the long-term farmland fertility “while conserving water, conserving nutrients, and also helping to reverse the carbon imbalance. Instead of putting carbon into the atmosphere, this approach will take the carbon out of the atmosphere and put it into the ground.” He said he was blown away by the information. In college, where his senior project had been on the carbon cycle, he had never heard charcoal being discussed as a significant part of the conversation.
Hunt literally began to play with fire. He started making bonfires and experimenting on ways to make good quality charcoal. And then he began using it in garden experiments. At first, he integrated his biochar research into his landscaping and farm work, but then made a career shift. He has now been in the biochar business for a decade, and launched Pacific Biochar six years ago.
Started with a small amount of seed funding and funded by revenues, the company operates in Hawaii and in California. While the company has produced biochar by hand as well as through various mechanical systems, its current approach to biochar production is through partnering with some California biomass power plants. They have modified their process to allow for the production of biochar.
What Is Biochar and Why the Buzz?
The International Biochar Initiative describes biochar as “The solid material obtained from the thermochemical conversion of biomass in an oxygen-limited environment.” That low oxygen environment results in the creation of charcoal rather than simply residual ash. Terminology varies. Some people refer to biochar as being particular to agricultural applications, and other terms such as biocarbons for purposely produced carbon used for non-agricultural applications.
USDA describes the benefits of biochar as “incredible—improved soil health, enhanced soil water holding capacity, increased plant growth and vigor, cleaner air quality, and perhaps most importantly… the ability to sequester carbon forever.”
Hunt is a board member of the United States Biochar Initiative, which works to support the development of a sustainable biochar industry. With over 6,100 peer-reviewed studies involving biochar, there is resounding evidence of its utility. At the end of the day, however, success comes down to building trust with customers and convincing them of biochar’s value. Given the potential for biochar to sequester carbon permanently in soil, the market could receive a significant boost if carbon taxes or a carbon market was instituted in response to climate change. With current market conditions, however, one market report projects the biochar market to grow in volume at a rate of 11.65% through to 2027.
Pacific Biochar’s California location is co-located with a compost yard, from which it processes and distributes its biochar products, either in bulk or super sack. The company has a warehouse and a conveyor it uses for filling the super sacks. It focuses on the agricultural market.
The primary feedstock coming into the participating biomass plants is residue from forest thinning, logging and sawmills. The company does not use pallet residuals in its feedstock but Hunt indicated that new pallet waste material would not pose an issue and could have broad application. For recycled pallet material, however, applications would be more limited due to concerns around contamination. He suggested that biocarbon from recycled pallet material could potentially find applications in products such as building materials, concrete or bioplastics.
According to Kathleen Draper, chair of the board of the International Biochar Initiative, the markets people are focusing on beyond agriculture are filtration, stormwater management, remediation and composites, although the latter is still in the early stages.
Char Technologies Uses Recycled Pallet Fiber to Make Filtration and Solid Fuel Products
While Pacific Biochar has steered clear of post-industrial wood waste, one company that makes use of shredded pallet material is Char Technologies. It has established a demonstration facility in London, Ontario. Char Technologies uses machinery supplied by Anergy, an Australian equipment provider for renewable energy power plants. The production system can handle about 1,650 lbs. per charge, taking an hour per cycle.
The company has chosen the route of going after existing markets rather than the daunting path of chasing after new applications. The two primary products it produces are SulfaCHAR and CleanFyre. SulfaCHAR is an activated carbon filtering product (think carbon water filters). It filters hydrogen sulfide out of renewable natural gas, allowing producers to drastically reduce the maintenance costs associated with toxic and corrosive hydrogen sulfide.
CleanFyre is a carbon-neutral coal replacement. One ton of coal gives off three tons of greenhouse gas emissions, so each ton of carbon neutral CleanFyre reduces three tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the company states.
The publicly traded company had revenues of $1.6M Canadian for 2019, a 55% increase over 2018, while still operating at a loss. EBITDA for FY2019 was $(240,609), an improvement from $(1,178,586) in the previous year.
Matching Capacity with Demand Is a Waiting Game
Remember the line from the movie, Field of Dreams? “Build it and they will come.” That is not the best advice for aspiring biochar producers. While the potential for wood fiber consumption is huge, unfortunately, the current market is still in its infancy. Hunt stresses the importance of building demand before building capacity.
“There is more interest in selling biochar than there is in buying it,” he cautioned. “We work our butt off to move the stuff, and we could produce a lot more than we are currently selling. There is good reason to believe that markets are growing, but there is not yet anything stable enough to justify large expenses (of installing biochar production equipment).”
“One thing to note,” Draper of the International Biochar Institute wrote to Pallet Enterprise, “is that the production of biochar offers many co-products (which varies depending on the biochar production technology but can include heat, electricity, bio-oil, wood vinegar plus biochar) and all should be utilized in order to make the economic case.”
“It is a bit of a paradigm hurdle,” Hunt offered, “getting people to recognize this charcoal product as something they would put in their soil and not in a barbeque.” There is an educational component, as well as a conversation about cost versus value. “When the conversation is stuck on price or cost, it is hard to move forward,” he said. Biochar is a long-term play. It is expensive but provides a value stream that can last hundreds of years.
“Within the farming communities that we’re working with, the value has to be built in trust,” he said. “They have to be able to trust that they will be able to get this value and that takes time.”
“Biochar seems to capture the imagination as more of an idea,” Hunt concluded. “It is an idea that is distinctly tied to long-term soil health, climate change mitigation and climate change adaptation – and none of those things are very well supported in our current financial markets.”
But if pressure to sequester more carbon becomes magnified through carbon taxes or other public policy mechanisms, however, the market just might heat up. Biochar, increasingly recognized for its value in sequestering carbon as well as promoting sustainable agriculture and other use cases, could have bright days ahead as an outlet for forest industry-related fiber.
