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| Titel |
Economic feasibility of biochar application to soils in temperate climate regions |
| VerfasserIn |
Gerhard Soja, Jannis Bücker, Stefan Gunczy, Barbara Kitzler, Michaela Klinglmüller, Stefanie Kloss, Andrea Watzinger, Bernhard Wimmer, Sophie Zechmeister-Boltenstern, Franz Zehetner |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2014
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 16 (2014) |
| Datensatznummer |
250093569
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2014-8421.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The findings that fertility improvements in tropical soils have been successfully mediated by
biochar applications have caused wide-spread interest to use biochar as a soil amendment also
for soils in temperate climate regions. But these soils in intensively cultivated regions
are not always as acidic or sandy as the tropical Ferralsols where biochar is most
effective. Therefore it is not self-evident that different soil characteristics allow biochar
to display the same benefits if site-specific demands for the optimal organic soil
amendment are not considered. This study pursued the objective to study the extent of
benefits that biochar could provide for crops on two typical Austrian agricultural
soils in a two-year field experiment. An economic evaluation assessed the local
biochar production costs and compared them with the value of the observed biochar
benefits.
From a business economic viewpoint, currently high costs of biochar are not balanced by
only moderate increases in crop yields and thus agricultural revenues. Improved water
retention due to biochar, however, might justify biochar as an adaptation measure to global
warming, especially when considering beside business economic aspects also overall
economic aspects.
When not assuming total crop failures but only increased soil fertility, even an inclusion
of avoided social (=societal) costs by sequestering carbon and thereby helping to mitigate
climate change do not economically justify the application of biochar. Price of biochar would
need to decrease by at least 40% to achieve a break-even from the overall economic
viewpoint (if optimistic assumptions about the social value of sequestered carbon are applied;
at pessimistic assumptions price for biochar must decrease even more in order to break
even).
When applying an alternative type of soil treatment of using modified biochar but
avoiding additional N-fertilization, a similar picture arises: Social benefits due to avoided
N-fertilization and therefore reduced N2O emissions are lower than reduced crop yields and
thus revenues due to avoided N-fertilization. Also this kind of social benefits is much lower
than social benefits from carbon sequestration.
In summary, an economically sustainable biochar strategy for biochar application to soils
without severe fertility problems will require that
the biochar benefits for climate change mitigation, groundwater protection, as
soil amendment or crop fertilizer have to be connected with a higher financial
value
biochar production costs have to decrease e.g. by upscaling of the production
processes or increased nutrient recovery by recycling of wastes. |
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