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How Biochar Removes CO2 From The Air — And Helps Farmers Thrive | Axel Reinaud | TED

Biochar is a kind of charcoal that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, helping yield healthy crops and even producing abundant renewable energy in the form of electricity as it’s made. This exciting climate change fighter is ready for scaling now. Entrepreneur Axel Reinaud outlines three ways to make this material more accessible to farmers —…

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Biochar is a kind of charcoal that removes CO2 from the atmosphere, helping yield healthy crops and even producing abundant renewable energy in the form of electricity as it’s made. This exciting climate change fighter is ready for scaling now. Entrepreneur Axel Reinaud outlines three ways to make this material more accessible to farmers — so that our food system, energy grid and the climate can all reap the benefits.

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54 Comments

54 Comments

  1. Adalbert Red

    March 2, 2022 at 5:15 pm

    Does the biochar requires energy (for heating) to be produced? How much, and from what source?

    • Matt V

      March 2, 2022 at 5:20 pm

      No, it actually produces excess energy. Volatile compounds in the biomass are burned, which creates heat and leaves behind carbon (biochar or charcoal).

    • Daniel

      March 2, 2022 at 11:48 pm

      @Matt V Right, the only energy input it needs is the flame that starts the fire (i.e. a Zippo lighter or match). The rest all comes from combustion.

    • CrafticalSurvivalSkills

      March 3, 2022 at 12:53 am

      @Daniel no, that would be with normal burning (using oxygen), which releases carbon.
      If you watch until the second half, it requires energy to start the pyrolysis, but capture of the flammable gases makes the net energy usage negative

  2. ferhat demir

    March 2, 2022 at 5:17 pm

    Save the planet.

  3. Rastaman Ralph

    March 2, 2022 at 5:18 pm

    Carbon is life so if you take carbon away you take life away. Carbon dioxide makes plants live so anyone who is vegan should be very worried about getting rid of it. I hear lots of people talking about climate change and only talking about taking co2 from the atmosphere but nobody is talking about all the chemicals and heavy metals getting sprayed in the skies all day every day that is poisoning the earth and everything that lives here as well as blocking out the sun which all life needs to survive. Wake up people you are being taken for a fool and helping them kill you and everything else off for good if you go along with these lies. Humans have been around for hundreds of millions of years but keep getting wiped out by the same kind of people who are trying to wipe us out now. History is lies along with everything you are being brainwashed to believe now. Something much more powerful and complex than humans designed this world and it works well enough on its own without humans trying to be the creator. Humans can’t even handle the force of water let alone anything else.

  4. King

    March 2, 2022 at 5:18 pm

    Where do i invest?

    • freemanjack msiradio

      March 2, 2022 at 9:35 pm

      in yourself

  5. Allan Oommen Kurian

    March 2, 2022 at 5:19 pm

    How is it heated without oxygen?

    • Calithyde

      March 2, 2022 at 5:37 pm

      Simply packing it in a sealed metal box with an outlet valve and heating the box will do

    • Christian Panero

      March 2, 2022 at 5:48 pm

      Usually in a pyrolysis plant a fraction of the biomass is burned to produce heat, or another fraction can be gasified to produce a syngas. Both the exhaust gases from the burner and the syngas produced by gasification do not contain oxygen and they are hot. So they can be used to heat up the biomass to produce char.

  6. Anirban Bera

    March 2, 2022 at 5:20 pm

    Good video

  7. Jon Trimarco

    March 2, 2022 at 5:20 pm

    … and its really easy to make. Check out the “kon tiki” pit design on other youtube videos if you are just getting started for your garden or farm.

  8. Denise Gandara

    March 2, 2022 at 5:23 pm

    👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

  9. sharon r bower

    March 2, 2022 at 5:35 pm

    By removing CO2 from the atmosphere you are suffocating the plants that manufacture oxygen. If you do not have oxygen to breath then you suffocate also.

    • Krystal

      March 2, 2022 at 6:12 pm

      He meant, reduce Co2.

  10. RS Johnson

    March 2, 2022 at 5:36 pm

    Captions would have been nice on this one.

    • Eric Chevrier

      March 2, 2022 at 5:48 pm

      Just click on the CC (close caption) button to get the automatic one.

  11. Florian Hansch

    March 2, 2022 at 5:39 pm

    I don’t know if anyone noticed but the icecaps have been melting since the end of the last ice age 11,000 years ago. Who was responsible then?

    • Florian Hansch

      March 2, 2022 at 5:45 pm

      @Adrien Bellaiche the rate is irrelevant, the outcome was inevitable. It’s happened before.

    • Dusty McGuire

      March 2, 2022 at 6:10 pm

      @Adrien Bellaiche yes. The great floods in which sea level increased feet over the course of a few days are well documented…..caused by Youngas Dryer impact

    • freemanjack msiradio

      March 2, 2022 at 9:41 pm

      I am so very sorry, I have to admit it was me, I wen’t out the other epoch and silly me, I left the heating on full blast. Was such a bender that sesh, took me a million years or so to get home and turn it down.

    • freemanjack msiradio

      March 2, 2022 at 9:49 pm

      @Dusty McGuire Can I ask you to consider the vast volume of water the oceans would have had to swallow, given any sea ice does not add to the level in the same way melting ice does not brim a glass if it melts, so all those mega kilometers of water volume can only have occupied the most northern and southern land masses (lets give it a generous half the total land mass @5% total area) so we need to explain a 95-5 volumetric increase ie; 90% of the planet rose by hundreds of meters with a volume ONLY drawn from 5% of its surface!

    • Florian Hansch

      March 2, 2022 at 11:08 pm

      @freemanjack msiradio that’s actually quite interesting because I never crunched the numbers until now, but it doesn’t really add up, it’s like a drop in the ocean (no pun intended)

  12. Adrien Bellaiche

    March 2, 2022 at 5:41 pm

    Someone tell this guy trees do the same.

    • Krystal

      March 2, 2022 at 6:04 pm

      Trees are carbon neutral.

    • freemanjack msiradio

      March 2, 2022 at 9:39 pm

      @Krystal so is biochar ultimately, all biology decays, decay releases sequestered carbon, biochar merely slows that process but then so does simply planting more trees, wood fuel should count as ‘carbon neutral’ in reality which might drive far better change than its listing as a pollutant.

    • Krystal

      March 2, 2022 at 10:17 pm

      ​@freemanjack msiradio As long as large trees are not planted in the suburbs, this has caused property damage, destruction and major maintenance on these properties. Where I live, everybody planted trees in the 1980’s because our Prime Minister told everybody we had to plant a billion trees to save the planet. The trees surrounding me, actually affect my insurance, and I don’t even have any trees. I can see in the next ten to 20 years the tree problem here will become massive.

    • freemanjack msiradio

      March 2, 2022 at 10:43 pm

      @Krystal Agree entirely, in south east london we are now overrun by a canadain maple used as a decoration for a royal visit that never happened in ’77, now if all those trees were treated as a man made forest and harvested on a 12 year cycle, none of this would be problematic and home owners could be compensated by selling their low grade timber for fuel wood.

    • APEX PREDATOR 101

      March 3, 2022 at 1:04 pm

      @Krystal Is the REAL problem the trees or ur suburbian lifestyles often grounded in excessive consumerism?

    • Krystal

      March 3, 2022 at 1:26 pm

      @APEX PREDATOR 101 I don’t have time to consume, I’m too busy cleaning up the neighbours vegetation and blocked drains.

    • Marketa

      March 3, 2022 at 4:21 pm

      @Krystal let’s build the tree houses 😍🤩

  13. Love Heist RGV

    March 2, 2022 at 5:42 pm

    Good

  14. onjoFilms

    March 2, 2022 at 6:09 pm

    You know what else removes CO2 from the air? It’s a product that has been in development for over a billion years. The smucking TREE!

  15. El Bicho

    March 2, 2022 at 6:13 pm

    More far-left BS. Do you know that we need CO2 to LIVE?

  16. Ben Jones

    March 2, 2022 at 6:38 pm

    It a bucket against the sea. Much more effective processes are needed.

    • LindaLu Sebring

      March 2, 2022 at 7:22 pm

      One of many solutions and carbon to the soil has additional benefits. All wholistic approaches will be useful to design our future systems.

    • TheFastAndThe Dead

      March 3, 2022 at 11:47 am

      All journeys start with one step… This does not exclude other technologies/solutions.

  17. Karla Reyes

    March 2, 2022 at 6:40 pm

    This is great! Now, where can I get some for my nasty Texas dessert soil?!

  18. David Hunt

    March 2, 2022 at 8:12 pm

    Your neoliberal globalist control plan is no more. Encourage people to do what they .can in their yards as individuals. Do this and the world will profit, try to force a global tax on us and your dreams will burn with you.

  19. Світлана Курило

    March 2, 2022 at 9:26 pm

    Putin’s still killing our people and destroying our cities!!! Today even cluster bombs were used, despite the fact that they were prohibited by the Convention. Google if you have no idea what kind of a horrific weapon it is! We are begging you to speak out in order to make the governments of your countries take measures and stop putin’s crimes !!!

  20. freemanjack msiradio

    March 2, 2022 at 9:34 pm

    Ill informed bunkum, biochar is a wonderful soil conditioner, however the sequestering of the initial charcoal into the soil column ‘increases microbial activity and biodiversity’, ANY biological action outside of the oxygen produced by oceanic blue green algae PRODUCES carbon dioxide as a net output, carbon dioxide is the gas of life, continually cycled to generate every cellular function. Just as an fyi, the Amazon is NOT the ‘lungs of the world’ it like every other land based life, has a carbon net zero, if you want to sanctify any part of the planet, the subsurface of the oceans is where to look, not only does this ecosystem generate ALL available excess oxygen (due to the gaseous bubbles rising from their source to the surface into the atmosphere) it also feeds the diatoms whose skeletons are sequestered carbon in the form of calcium carbonate which slowly rains on to the sea floor.

  21. Sven B

    March 2, 2022 at 10:17 pm

    Oh we finally figured out how to use energy to put carbon back to the ground? Thats almost as cool as not digging it up and burning it in the first place.

  22. Peter Clark

    March 2, 2022 at 10:24 pm

    CO² is airborne fertiliser for plants that photosynthesise. A vital element for continued life above ground. The Carboniferous (the most productive period in Earth’s history) had levels up to 7000ppm; and it laid all the oil and coal.
    A shortage of CO² costs the plant internal water because the stoma have to remain open longer to get the essential snack.
    Biochar: requires burning organic matter which releases CO².
    The most complete solution to Earth’s problems are contained in the principles of Regenerative Agriculture (RA) because life on Earth is a dynamic system that requires consumption, recycling and regrowth. Once you grasp the interweaving of all the processes of RA we can see a path to the reversal of all of the man-made deserts; which is all of them, they are not natural. New growth sucks up CO² fast.

  23. l0gic23

    March 3, 2022 at 1:16 am

    Or he could produce it himself and sell it to his neighbors.

    He will donate his waste product and pay to get it back? Hmmm wonder why this is suggested in Africa and not Arizona or Texas or California? Why, because the plan is probably to exploit.

    Ted, stop the infocommercials!

  24. Feroce

    March 3, 2022 at 1:23 am

    So… it’s charcoal then.

  25. m

    March 3, 2022 at 1:46 am

    Um, how is this any better than just mulching or composting dead plants? How is generating _more_ heat a good thing? Lots of other things already generate heat (eg electronics), why not try to capture or divert those unavoidable sources of heat instead of making more? If you want to burn plants (hopefully already dead), then at least try to find ways to reduce how much heat other stuff (like lighting and transportation) generate.

    • TheFastAndThe Dead

      March 3, 2022 at 11:48 am

      Normal decomposition releases CO2.

  26. Randy James

    March 3, 2022 at 4:12 am

    Booooooooo to this old TED intro. The new one is soooooooo much less annoying than this one — it’s cleaner and adroitly concise!

  27. Michael Janapin

    March 3, 2022 at 5:23 am

    Wow, Biochar looks so promising.

  28. youcouldnt bustagrape

    March 3, 2022 at 5:38 am

    Nobody is listening because they are too busy buying cheap crap from China on Amazon and then returning it. One big revolving door of pollution.

  29. RAGHAVENDRA MIRJI

    March 3, 2022 at 12:42 pm

    This could be very useful in India as Agriculture residues are just brunt.

  30. APEX PREDATOR 101

    March 3, 2022 at 1:00 pm

    📖

  31. James Humphries

    March 3, 2022 at 1:57 pm

    Climate change is a scam

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