Tim Flannery talks bio char and why we need to move into the renewable age

Beyond Zero talks with Tim Flannery about Terra Preta (bio char), his experience as 'Australian of the Year' and the current political climate.

Tim Flannery podcast

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Scott Bilby: This morning on Beyond Zero we will be interviewing Dr Tim Flannery. Flannery has made contributions of international significance to the fields of palaeontology, homology and nature conservation and to the understanding of science in the broader community. His work has received international acclaim. Flannery is the former director of the South Australian museum, is professor at Sydney's Macquarie University and was a professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University. In 2007 he was named 'Australian of the Year'.

He has dedicated much time and effort to conveying to us all just how much we are altering our planet's climate and how we must act now to ensure that these changes do not have a devastating impact on life on Earth. He has written several best selling books including The Weather Makers. This book tells of the likely ecological effects to our planet if human induced climate change is not adequately addressed. Since it's publishing in 2005, the news on climate change has significantly worsened. Dr Flannery is here today to tell us how to eliminate today's dangerous levels of green house gases.

Over to you Matthew.

Matthew Wright: We'll just see if we have Dr. Flannery there. Good Morning Tim?

Tim Flannery: Good morning Matthew how are you?

Matthew Wright: We're good, thank you.

This morning we actually came across some quotes from an address you gave in the United States where you were talking about Terra Preta and that caught our interest and we've done a bit of research and we want to start talking to our audience about how we can use these sort of sequestration processes to actively draw down atmospheric carbon and start removing that carbon debt and we were quite happy to see that you had come across this and that you had some numbers on this and some views, and we've got some supporting information, so we'd like to hear from you what you can tell the audience about and how you can describe Terra Preta and the advantage.

Tim Flannery: Sure Matthew yeah.

Look I think we should start with the knowledge that there is 200 gigatonnes of excess carbon floating around in our atmosphere. Now that is a very large amount of carbon. I won't explain what a gigatonne is but it's a lot, and that started to accumulate at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution as we burnt the coal and put the carbon into the atmosphere.

Now, it has become very clear that we have to find a way of drawing down that carbon stock in the atmosphere. So we've got to not only reduce our emissions, so get rid of the burning of coal and so on and so forth, we have to draw down the existing gas and people have been searching for ways of doing this. Some of your listeners may have heard about proposals to re-grow tropical forests for example, or forestry's "I'll plant a tree and off set your emissions" and this sort of thing.

Well these Terra Preta solutions are in some ways or certainly for some purposes are a better solution, a superior solution to anything that's been brought up so far. What the process basically involves is taking any biological material, that could be crop waste or corn stalks or whatever, forestry waste, even human sewage, and partially burning it in the absence of oxygen so that you get a synthetic gas at one end of the process that you can then burn which is hydrogen rich, not so much carbon in it, but hydrogen rich, you can burn that for transport purposes or to generate electricity and at the other end of the process you get charcoal. And the great thing about charcoal is that it is a very stable form of carbon.

You know I've done a lot of work on Australia's prehistory. I know that the carbon 14 dating underpins all of that. And that is based on the premise that charcoal lasts for thousands of years in the soil so that if a farmer takes his crop waste subjected to this pyrolysis process, makes charcoal puts it back into his field is sequested a lot of carbon that only recently was floating around in the atmosphere put it back in his soil and it will stay there for a very long time, so that, in essence, is the process.

Matthew Wright: Ok, great.

And there was a conference that you attended, or gave an address to, in NSW last year?

Tim Flannery: That's right. We were the first international congress on bio-char occurred last year in May on the Central Coast. I think it's where Australia's first pyrolysis machine is actually operating and it was fantastic to see the interest from around the globe in this, in these technologies. Industry wants a sure way of sequestering carbon, governments want it, and farmers in this process, can provide that need. So I think everything is set now for us to move forward and start sequestering carbon on a large scale in this process. But before that is going to happen you need to have a proper price that the polluter has to pay for their carbon pollution because if we don't get that, no-one is going to be able to make the investments in the machinery and so forth required to make this Terra Preta solution really work.

Matthew Wright: And we've heard that that needs to be around $35 dollars U.S a tonne, but is priced under the so-called hypothetical clean coal technologies, is that right?

Tim Flannery: That's right. Yeah, yeah exactly. So you know those technologies in Australia, the clean coal technologies, are probably not going to be affected I suspect until the carbon price reaches 70 odd dollars a tonne. So these are somewhat, potentially at least, somewhat cheaper processes in Australia and of course you know it depends on local circumstances. In some circumstances it may be very much more cost effective to use these technologies. So for example, piggery waste or feed lot waste or chicken farms or human sewage, you know in certain circumstances, might be much more cost effective than say user ???? for that broad-acre agriculture.

Matthew Wright: Yeah, ok. So in terms of what's been discussed in relation to using analysis of what it would take to pull say 6.1 gigatonnes of carbon out of the atmosphere and of course we are putting up approaching 10 gigatonnes per annum as our growth occurs. The talk of actually doing this on degraded lands and perhaps putting those back to be arable and be usable again and with a growing population and food stress that we are currently suffering internationally, how do you see this helping?

Tim Flannery: Well, one of the things that charcoal that's very good about this technology is that charcoal helps with soil fertility. It's got some nutrients in it already you know, that is charcoal that is produced under these processes, and it helps structure soil it helps to restore moisture retention and acts as a sort of a substrate, almost like a coral reef, for biological activity. So microbes of various sorts, fungi and this sort of thing find a home in that charcoal and all of those are beneficial to soil and plant growth. So under certain circumstances at least, soil can be improved with the addition of charcoal. Now people are trying to work out at the moment how widespread that effect is because obviously soil tops vary greatly across the world. But you know, the potential is there to provide these technologies on degraded lands at this stage improve soil quality to the point where you can start the recovery process for those degraded lands.

Matthew Wright: So how much more research needs to be done around the world, and for how long in order, if we really accelerated the process, to actually find out where Terra Preta applies or where we have to have additional fertilisers in order to get it going?

Tim Flannery: Ah, well that's a very good question and its one of those things where I suspect that we'll learn on the job in a sense. We could start a research program I suppose, that took in the whole world, but if you did that you wouldn't do anything until the program finished. I think a much more productive way of doing it is starting pilot programs around the world under various circumstances and conditions and starting to learn on the job so to speak. Now that could start tomorrow and we wouldn't have a definitive answer probably ever, but at least we'd learn through that process as to how applicable that is. And I think that 6 gigatonne per annum figure that you mentioned is imminently feasible just looking at the amount of biological productivity around the planet.

Matthew Wright: So, with the oil hitting 100 US dollars a barrel last week, can you tell us about any potential here to replace petroleum based fertilizers or reduce their use?

Tim Flannery: Ah look, I guess what you are doing by enhancing the soil fertility that you use in charcoal, I can only presume that you need less in the way of fertilizers. Now I'm no expert in agriculture, and I don't know the full details of what nutrients are enhanced using these processes to the point where you can get rid of petroleum based fertilizers. But you'd have to say its got to be an overall positive in that it just gives you a better crop. Independent experiments have shown that it gives you a better crop the following year if you plough that charcoal into your field.

Matthew Wright: In a recent address to the American Geophysical Union, Dr. James Hanson from NASA said that we need to go below 350 parts per million to have a stable atmosphere that we are used to experiencing for our agricultural needs, and our biodiversity and ecological systems. In terms of your call about trying to aim for say 5% sequestration per year over 20 years in order to remove that carbon debt, if we can get that going, how do you see, where do you see us going for a stable climate, a safe climate that can continue and maintain the huge populations that we've got around the world now?

Tim Flannery: Well that's a very good question. I mean I suppose implicit in James Hansons' comments is the reality that we are living right now with unacceptable climate risk, very high levels of unacceptable risk, and we need to draw that down as quickly as we can. Now if you used these agri-char based technologies and you have your aggressive reaforestation projects for the worlds tropics, you could conceivably be drawing down in the order of 10 to 15 tonnes, gigatonnes sorry, of carbon per annum by about 2030. At that rate we could bring ourselves down below the dangerous threshold as early as the middle of this century, but whether the world can actually get its act together and do that is another matter. This is the first real directed experiment at planetary engineering that we are talking about here, and we don't really have the political structures in place to enable us to implement the technology that we already have. So I would see the change basically as a political one. Its a global political change and the Kyoto process that rolls out now from Potsdam this year and then Copenhagen next year will be the key factors in the success or failure of us humans to do that.

Scott Bilby: Tim, Scott here. I'd just like to ask a question. Is it relevant trying to include Terra Preta in emissions trading schemes?

Tim Flannery: Well, it's a much better option in my view for emissions trading schemes than forestry because the sequestration in forests is always uncertain. You know, we're not sure whether someone may come along and chop down the forest that's been planted or whether a hurricane might destroy it or whatever, but there is a high element of risk in investing in sequestration in forests. I think there are a whole lot of reasons they are very good mind you, but this is one downside to them.

When it comes to charcoal, charcoal is such an inert form of carbon, it's a very good option for sequestration. So once someone's ploughed that charcoal into their field, there is no way it's going to come out again. You know you can measure it precisely, you can weigh it to the kilogram, someone can pay you for that sequestration and plough it into the field.

I need to go back to basics here just to point out to people that you know, a corn plant for example or a wheat plant growing in the field is growing from the air, its growing from carbon dioxide captured from the air to make that plant. Now, normally if you harvest the wheat or the corn and then you let the corn stalks fall to the earth they will rot away, providing a little bit of fertility in the soil, but releasing all of that carbon. If you subject that same crop waste to this pyrolysis process, you can fertilize the soil with the charcoal which is a very stable form of carbon and will not rot away and you gain this synthetic gas that allows you to drive your tractor or light your farm house or whatever you want as well.

Matthew Wright: Station announcement, 8.47am.

Matthew Wright: Tim, in your experience as the 'Australian of the Year' and what happened politically, and a lot of Australians believe that you assisted in the outcome of the election. I think a lot of it was around climate change as one of the main issues. hHow do you feel politicians you speak to and business leaders now are taking the climate change issue in Australia? Have the attitudes changed and where do you think we're going?

Tim Flannery: Look attitudes have changed. I haven't really talked to Brendan Nelson about this and I don't know what his view of the issue is, but I do know Malcolm Tunrbull's view which is that this is a very serious issue. On the labor side I think you've got a very good team there that really understands the issue and even more importantly for Australia understands the opportunities that exist. So I think we have crossed a Rubicon so to speak. You know, either party could have done it but as it happens the Labor Party was the one that pushed through with that stuff and I think Australia will start reaping benefits in future now as a result of that more enlightened policy.

Matthew Wright: Yeah that's great.

In Victoria this morning in the lead article in 'The Age' is talking about our electricity demand peaking yesterday at 9300 megawatts which is really high, much higher than when we lost power last year in January. Unfortunately, the Victorian Employee Chamber Of Commerce And Industries, (VECCI) is calling for another brown coal fired power plant. Now, what should listeners, and what should we be doing, about those sort of calls in an age where we have concentrated salt and thermal plants emerging. We have energy efficiency options, we even have gas as an option. What do you think we should be doing about that?

Tim Flannery: Well, we already know what happens when you built a new coal fired power plant in Victoria. It happened a few years ago with Loy Yang B (coal fired power station in Victoria) and the states emissions went up 30%. Way in excess of the Kyoto limits for the nation. So you can either repeat that experiment and isolate yourself more internationally and be on the wrong track entirely in terms of your investments, or you can start diversifying the portfolio of energy generation assets particularly photovoltaics.

Melbourne's problem, Victoria's problem, is peak demand over summer for air conditioners. So you build a coal fired power plant, the damn thing, you might only need it 3 weeks a year, but you can be sure as hell it will run all year because that's just the nature of the way the electricity business goes, but if you build photovoltaics, or put photovoltaic panels on houses, you will have that peak demand coinciding with peak input from those panels, um, peak electricity input. So, if I was the Victorian Government I would just say we have to somehow link the implementation of solar panels with the sale of air conditioners.

Matthew Wright: Yes, exactly, and we've seen internationally that Germany last year installed 1200 megawatts of solar PV which is more than that power station that VECCI is proposing, which is 1000 megawatts. So, that's one year of...

Tim Flannery: ...it's all that sun that Germany gets, that's the reason obviously

[LAUGHTER]

Matthew Wright: Now, the same solar panel installed in Germany produces about a half or one third the power of one installed in Australia is that right?

Tim Flannery: Yeah, that would be about right. It's simply a matter of government policy. It's a failure of government policy and Victorians need to be very proactive now to get on top of this and make sure that their government invests in the appropriate technology for Victoria's future.

You guys have got some brilliant technology down there. The concentrated PV array that is going to be going up at Mildura is a world leading technology. Now that is a 400 megawatt plant that is going to be, and that's the future. Its not more bloody brown coal fired plants. You know? But the government needs to invest in its own future and get away from the19th century technologies and straight into the 21st because that is where the wealth of the state is going to be. I mean at the moment the people that are putting that plant in Mildura are just about, or they're considering sighting a new factory to build those concentrated PV arrays in Dandenong, you know? That is a huge win for the Victorian Government and they need to be building on those sort of examples to build a prosperous future.

Matthew Wright: And if we get in quick we will actually be leveraging that and exporting those technologies unlike what happened with Dr David Mills whose actually had to go to the United States.

Tim Flannery: That's right. That technology is so important for Australia, that concentrated PV one that's based in Victoria now. We can't let that go the same way as the Mills material, or as Green Stuff went off to Germany. I mean he went to Germany, and Dr Zhou from China, now the third richest man in China, trained in New South Wales, has taken all of his stuff offshore because of a lack of support during the late 1990's.

Matthew Wright: So what do you think Government can do, seeing that the need is so dire? What can they can do to accelerate the rollout of for instance that solar PV, solar concentrating photovoltaic effort up in Mildura? Is there anyway we can bring these kind of technologies forward and what can we do to start matching what Germany is doing with 1200 megawatts per annum of solar PV going on roofs?

Tim Flannery: Well look, I think that we have to let the free market do some of this and that means getting a price for carbon in. Now, that Garnaut Report is coming out this year, hopefully in a few months, and we'll see what they say about that. So getting a carbon trading scheme up is very important.

But beyond that Government has a real role in legislating and they should simply be saying right now, there is no way we're going to build a new coal fired power plant in Victoria, in fact over the next 40 years our intention is to de-commission all existing plants and replace them with either clean coal or something else, you know? Or at least converting them to a clean coal option just to give people that clear long term vision that this is not acceptable.

And in terms of PV, you've got a specific problem with peaking load there. The Victorian Government may want to say that for every megawatt of demand that has gone in in terms of air conditioning we're going to be putting in 2 megawatts of solar panel capacity in. And you can do that through various incentives and government programs and so forth. But they're the sorts of things we need to do to get on top of this problem.

Matthew Wright: And I think even just as cheap, I think 50% of that growth actually is from the 50 thousand new houses going in because they generally all have an air conditioning system. So they could be built like the U.K. proposal for zero carbon houses by 2016.

Tim Flannery: That's right. Exactly. And there's examples of that sort of thing here in Australia. The system in New South Wales is actually a pretty good one in terms of new houses and demand management. But, in any case, its not beyond the wit of our politicians to come up with some very elegant and easy and cost effective solutions to these problems, and I'm constantly astonished in Australia by the, I don't know, the lack of leadership on behalf of our state governments in this area. I'm not saying they haven't done many good things, but they need to get very, very aggressive on this now because time is really running out.

Matthew Wright: Yeah great. O.K. Thank you very much Dr Flannery.

We've been speaking to Tim Flannery, 2007 'Australian of the Year'. He's enlightened us on Terra Preta, the way of actively drawing down atmospheric carbon, and what we need to do about coal fired power stations, which is to build none of them and close down the rest. And we'd like to thank you for coming in and hopefully you'll be able to join us again some time later in the year?

Tim Flannery: Thank you very much, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.

STATION ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR 3CR:

Matthew Wright: You're with community radio 3CR and just to sum up the Beyond Zero show for today after speaking to Dr Flannery who we really appreciate joining us today, we would just like to report about a project that's moving forward in New South Wales. Likely to contribute up to 5% of the total power consumed in New South Wales and that's the Epuron Wind Farm Project near Broken Hill. Macquarie Bank is now looking at a co-financing deal on that, and it's worth 2.5 billion dollars, and it's what we call 'serious renewables' as opposed to all the hobby wind farms and hobby solar PV installations like the one on my house, that we have around the place. This is about actually replacing our power production. So for instance if we saw 20 more sites like that in New South Wales we'd start to seriously eat into that coal fired power generation. So that's great news.

And some other great news around the world includes plug-in hybrid electric vehicles being seriously on the agenda from General Motors and Toyota, and that huge solar installation statistic from Germany; 1200 megawatts in just one year installed and expected to grow this year again.

And in China this year alone, one company is expected to build 1200 megawatts of wind, that's completed, and start another 1100 megawatts. So things are happening, they're not happening in Australia yet, but with your help we can make that occur. So thanks for joining us on the Beyond Zero Emmisions show today.

Scott Bilby: And I'd just like to say that Beyond Zero is presented by the climate change campaign group 'Beyond Zero Emissions'. If you want to find out more about issues relating to climate change you can visit us at www.beyondzeroemmissions.org. And I think it was great having Tim live on the show this morning.

Matthew Wright: It was. And you can look forward to more great interviews in the coming weeks.

Scott Bilby: And on behalf on the Beyond Zero team I'd like to say thank you for listening and be sure to tune in next week from 8.30am to 9am. Next on 3CR is 'Left After Breakfast'.

STATION ANNOUNCEMENT:

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Lukas Van Zwieten - NSW DPI talks to Beyond Zero about their Bio Char Field Trials

Johannes Lehmann the world's leading expert on Bio Char talks to Beyond Zero

Note: Original radio interview went live to air on January 11 2008

Transcript by Anna Phipps