Upscaling Biochar as a Soil Amendment and Waste Management Technology: Lessons from Ag History

Agricultural biochar offers an appealing way to sequester carbon dioxide while also improving farm soils. By pyrolising organic material (including farm and forestry wastes, but also possibly purpose-grown bio-crops), it is possible to lock atmospheric carbon into a stable solid form, which has numerous benefits when ground up and added to farm soils. Achieving this in practice, however, will require major changes to agricultural and waste management systems, with substantial ramifications from a social, economic, and political perspective. In this webinar, helped October 26, 2023, the authors of a new study in Technological Forecasting and Social Change discuss their findings where they argue that we can use the history of three historical analogues for biochar: fertilizer, ethanol fuel, and compost, to predict how the development of a large-scale biochar industry might play out. Taken together, these other approaches suggest that upscaling biochar is far more complex than simply offering the appropriate financial incentives.
Panelists:
Cameron Roberts, Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Wisconsin Madison Centre for Sustainability and the Global Environment
Moderator:
Wil Burns, Co-Director, Institute for Carbon Removal Law & Policy