The goal was a horse, but the design task was assigned to the Royal Society. Much levity ensues. See Oliver's series of recent posts: he's a local and in the business.

The biochar lists are having a fit since the RS panned biochar as a geoengineering solution for climate change mitigation, characterizing it as a high cost/low effectiveness solution with significant "safety" concerns that need study. One way to understand that attitude might be to compare BECS (bio-energy with carbon sequestration) and BECCS (Bio-energy with charcoal carbon sequestration ).

Bioenergy with carbon storage (BECS) holds out the prospect of reducing CO2i from the atmosphere while producing carbon-negative energy. The article provides an informative introduction on how “carbon-negativity” is feasible and assumes geosequestration (developed from the “clean coal” industry, CO2 capture in depleted oil and gas fields, saline aquifers etc.) as the sequestering tool. Laurens Rademakers delineates the risks such as deforestation of tropical rainforests and leakage of geosequestration. In addition these technologies require vast capital inputs and large scale projects.

A substantive difference of bio-energy to fossil-energy allows Charcoal Carbon Capture! Geosequestration and carbon capture technologies are currently being developed by the coal industry in order to produce the so-called “clean coal”. Using this technology, the coal industry can at best reduce its CO2 emissions, while using re-growing biomass would establish a carbon sink. This substantive difference allows bio-energy (energy from re-growing biomass) production systems to apply yet another way to capture carbon – Charcoal Carbon Sequestration! Bio-energy with charcoal carbon sequestration (BECCS) would only capture a maximum of 50% of the carbon stored in the biomass but offers the following advantages:

1)Decentralized and small scale projects are feasible

2)Large capital investments are not necessary. The technologies range from small cooking stoves to large bioenergy production units. No carbon capture technology is necessary as charcoal is a byproduct of gasification. As price for the incomplete gasification a proportion of the energy (geosequestration demands energy too) is invested to capture carbon in charcoal

3) Biochar (Charcoal used as soil amendment) increases soil fertility and sustainability (important for continuous cropping for energy or food crops)

4) No risk of harmful CO2 leakage as in systems like geosequestration. Most scientists agree that the half life of charcoal is in the range of centuries or millennia.

5) Only re-growing resources can establish a carbon sink. Tropical Rainforest is not considered as re-growing resource in a BECCS scenario.

An access to the C trade market holds out the prospect to reduce deforestation of primary forest, because using intact primary forest would reduce the C credits. The estimated above-ground biomass of unlogged forests is around 400 Mg ha 1, about half of which is C. This C is lost at a high percentage if used for gasification and only < 50% is captured by BECCS. The C trade could provide an incentive to cease further deforestation; instead reforestation and recuperation of degraded land for fuel and food crops would gain magnitude.

I suspect that the philosopher kings that find biochar to be expensive, ineffective and a bit worrisome; and the philosopher kings that find biochar to be cheap, effective and worry free so long as there is a massive bureaucracy to shift incentives from char production to tree production; are all a bit sophomoric - as is the habit of philosopher kings. None of them yet know much about either climate cycles or carbon cycles, but they none the less consider themselves to be qualified to make global decisions. That's their job, it says so in their job descriptions, and if not them who?

We need better energy systems. We need better agronomic systems. This is so whether the climate is changing or not. It has been so for many decades but progress on both tasks has been impeded by the philosopher kings who were busy spinning in confusion and trivia, as only the very wisest and best educated philosophers can do. The rubes call them educated fools. It isn't that they are fools that have been educated, though that is often the case, it is that their education has turned them into fools when they might otherwise have been functional humans who did not so often and easily get trapped by silly confusions.

I often hear arguments that the failures of the philosophers are understandable, justifiable, and that they meant well. They may be mistaken much of the time, but over time their mistakes are corrected and they proceed in what can fairly be described as a drunkard's tipsy walk in the general direction of progress, with an occasional face plant into the gutter and a little slapstick comedy as they try to get back up. Banana peels, buckets of water (or better, wall paper paste) and various boards and poles with which to accidentally whack one another while they stumble about may or may not be required.

Broadly speaking, this is how a discovery machine works in society as a whole. There doesn't seem to be any value added by the philosophers. At best they are self-important prigs who believe that they are leading a parade when in truth they are merely following it at the front. They do not determine its path, they merely scramble about trying to stay near the front, carried before the gale as it were like desiccated leaves and street litter on a windy day.

Biochar is about bio-energy (and bio-chemicals such as ammonia etc.) and agronomic systems. Climate change is irrelevant. Study and application should and will proceed independent of the gyrations of the philosophers. Progress will be better if the philosophers focus elsewhere since they won't mung up the discovery machine with their clumsy antics, and so I think it great good news that the RS and hopefully the UN and other clown corps pursue other interests.