Comment Log Display

Closing the Circle: 
Linked Responses to California’s Critical Environmental Challenges

Presentation by David Morell, PhD
Sonoma Ecology Center/Sonoma Biochar Initiative 

I am pleased to present these insights and recommendations to this
ARB workshop as we focus on preparing the best possible scoping
plan for the ongoing effective implementation of AB 32. 

California at this time faces three difficult environment-based
challenges: continuing water shortages and ever-higher water costs;
risks of massive forest fires associated with millions of dead
trees caused by the drought and its related bark beetle
infestation; and growing need to increasingly reduce CO2 and other
greenhouse gas emissions in response to climate change imperatives.


Meeting these three challenges simultaneously sounds daunting; and
it surely is. But an efficient new integrated response to these
related challenges is now available: biochar.

Biochar is a specialized form of charcoal made at high temperature
in a low oxygen environment (a process termed "pyrolysis").
Combined with compost or similar nutrients, biochar has been
demonstrated to retain soil moisture, improve soil health, increase
soil organic matter, expand crop yields, and sequester carbon
safely for decades or longer. The physical structure of biochar,
with its literally millions of tiny pores, holds water from
leaching away; its chemical characteristics stimulate uptake of
nutrients in the soils by the plants’ roots.  

Over the past several years the team that I lead at the Sonoma
Ecology Center has been exploring and demonstrating the value of
using biochar in local agriculture. With support from USDA Natural
Resources Conservation Service and the Sonoma County Water Agency,
among others, we have had several impressive positive results. At
one high-end vegetable farm near Sonoma, for example, our results
showed literally 50 percent more soil moisture in the test plot (in
which biochar and compost were applied) as compared to the adjacent
control plot (with compost alone).

Using biochar as a soil amendment in California agriculture can
save millions of acre/feet of water saved every year. This is true
for the state’s almond, walnut, and citrus orchards, vegetable
fields, vineyards…across the board. Research efforts and field
demonstrations like ours in Sonoma document significant savings —
sometimes more, sometimes less, with variations due to soil
conditions, crops being grown, historical farm practices, and
irrigation techniques. 

Saving that much water will allow California farmers to save many
millions of dollars. New financial instruments can be designed to
allow eligible farmers to cover the costs of applying biochar to
their farm’s soil with repayments made over 10 years or so out of
money gained by their water savings. These loans could be
guaranteed by the state’s new Water Bond or AB 32 funds.

Where can we obtain all this new biochar? At what cost? Here’s
where the forest challenge comes in and we begin to close the
circle, since the biochar can be created from the millions of dead
trees in California’s drought-ridden forests. A few of the state’s
dozen or so existing biomass-to-energy facilities can be readily
converted make biochar rather than wood ash while still producing
heat and energy from the woody biomass. One such facility in
Northern California has already been converted — it is now
producing high-quality biochar that is being made available to
farmers at prices impossible before: less than $100/cubic yard
delivered to local farms. 

These facilities currently face closure as their electricity sales
contracts come to an end; biochar sales can play a role in helping
to sustain them, retaining their highly skilled operators. Using
dead and dying trees in this way allows us to thin the state’s
forests carefully, thereby greatly reducing forest fire risks. At
the same time, many new jobs will be created in rural areas. (As
for cost concerns, California has spent over $3 billion in recent
years fighting these fires, and that’s not counting the costs to
devastated communities.)

Finally, there’s climate change. California already leads globally
in creating renewable energy supplies (solar, wind, and
geothermal), encouraging energy conservation in residential and
commercial buildings, and creating appropriate legislative
incentives: AB 32 and Sonoma Clean Power are two excellent
examples. While these initiatives all help reduce new carbon
emissions into the atmosphere, moving us towards “carbon neutral”,
none of them work to remove carbon from the atmosphere by placing
carbon underground, an action that is truly “carbon negative.”
Using biochar in California agriculture does just this, burying
thousands of tons of elemental carbon in the ground for decades,
where it will save water while reducing forest fire risk. Now the
circle is truly closed, proving once again the classic ecological
principle that all systems are linked to one another in nature. By
adding this approach to the AB 32 scoping plan we can accelerate
its implementation throughout water-using California agriculture.


Dr. David Morell (dmorell17@gmail.com) is Vice Chair of the Board
of Directors and Treasurer of the Sonoma Ecology Center, where he
directs the organization’s biochar activities including the Sonoma
County Biochar Project. His career includes senior positions in the
US Environmental Protection Agency, State of California Department
of Health Services, Santa Clara County, and Princeton University’s
Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.