Converting manure to biochar could help curb climate change

Manure, something that is produced naturally in livestock and poultry operations, is being viewed by many as a possible way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) on the farm while producing a usable by-product.

The USA Today’s Brian Winter has an article on the publication’s website that discusses this very issue. Winter describes how West Virginia farmer Josh Frye operates a biochar system on his poultry farm. Here’s how it works: 1) the birds do their business; 2) the litter then goes to an “experimental incinerating machine; 3) what is left from the incineration is a “charcoal-like substance” called biochar.

The biochar not only works as a good fertilizer because of its high carbon content, “but also helps keep carbon in the soil instead of letting it escape into the atmosphere, where it acts as a greenhouse gas.” The process works so well that Frye told Winter that, “before long, ‘the chicken poop could be worth more than the chickens themselves.”’ Additionally, Frye is able to use the heat from the incinerating process to keep his hatchlings at the proper temperature.

So, biochar reduces the amount of manure on the farm, reduces a farm’s carbon footprint, and provides a source of heat and a good fertilizer. The downside is that the technology is rather new and expensive at this point in time.

Currently, Frye sells about $1,000 worth of biochar to other farmers, or about a dollar per pound of biochar. Frye hopes to expand his operation, which has been so successful that everyone from venture capitalists to members of Congress have shown up on his farm to see the biochar system at work. Winter reports that some analysts see biochar as a quick, cheap green technology that may become more widespread as the world looks for ways to curb climate change.

Jae Edmonds, who is a climate change scientist at the University of Maryland, believes that biochar, combined with other relatively simple, low cost initiatives “could have a meaningful, positive impact on the environment.” It may also be something that Congress could act on immediately while negotiating a broader, and what will certainly become more controversial, climate change bill. We shall see if this turns out to be the case.

To read the Winter article in USA Today, click here.

Posted: 02/11/10