Biochar for Energy Plantations

The low productivity of wood from energy plantations is one of the obstacles to the development of energy plantations. Although energy plantation plants such as calliandra can grow on marginal or critical lands, the quality of the soil affects the productivity of the wood produced. This makes it important to improve the quality of the soil of these energy plantations so that they can produce optimal plant productivity. Biochar can be an effective solution for this. Biomass waste that pollutes the environment can be used for biochar production or wood products from these energy plantations can be partly used for biochar production.

Biochar and energy plantations are two positive things for climate solutions. Energy plantations for the production of carbon neutral biomass fuels such as wood pellets, while biochar is to improve soil quality, save fertilizer use and so on and as carbon sequestration / carbon sinks that are carbon negative. The biochar solution for energy plantations will maximize CO2 reduction and sustainability efforts. The vastness of energy plantations is because they are pursuing the target of producing biomass fuel quantities which are comparable to land use and also comparable to the use of biochar. This is so that industrial-scale biochar production is needed to support this, read more details here. The more damaged the land or critical lands are, the greater the need for biochar. And the production of large-capacity biochar has the opportunity to get carbon credit or BCR (Biochar Carbon Removal) credit which can be a driving force for the growth of biochar industries.

Critical and marginal lands should be prioritized as energy plantation lands. This will not only restore land quality but will also provide added value to land use and efforts to prevent disasters. Land legality is also an important concern. Land must be clear and clean, meaning free from disputes so that it does not cause problems in the future. Furthermore, industrial forest plantation land (HTI) which is indeed in accordance with its designation as a production forest can also be used for energy plantation land. How damaged or degraded the land is will determine how much biochar is used. Meanwhile, the creation of energy plantations from land conversion from protected forests / conservation forests to production forests should be prohibited, because instead of saving the environment, it will actually have a greater negative impact on the environment. So opening forest land (deforestation) for energy plantations is not recommended at all.

Taiwan, Asia's New Wood Pellet Market

After Japan and Korea have been the main markets for wood pellets in Asia for years, Taiwan is predicted to emerge as a new destination for the wood pellet market in Asia. This is because Taiwan's energy policy targets 20% renewable energy use by 2025. Namely by focusing on the energy transition from coal and other fossil fuels to renewable energy sources including biomass, solar and wind to increase renewable energy from 10% to 20% by 2025. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act requires annual carbon emissions to be reduced by 20% by 2030 and 50% by 2050, below 2005 levels or a reduction of 53 million tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030 and 133 million tons by 2050. This is also part of Taiwan's nuclear-free vision and supports the national goal of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Renewable energy development is the most important implementation to achieve this goal and wood pellets are a top priority. Taiwan will import wood pellets in large quantities to achieve its new green energy production targets.

The need for wood pellets in Taiwan reaches millions of tons or more detailed estimates are 1.7 million tons per year specifically for Taiwan Power Company, which will be implemented immediately when the policy is implemented. And there are also a number of independent power plants (IPP) that use coal boilers to generate electricity, especially the plastic industry, petroleum refineries and papermaking. Currently, renewable energy accounts for less than 10% of the total energy output in Taiwan. Meanwhile, the government aims to have 778 megawatts (MW) of biomass-based power plants by 2025, allowing production of 4.1 billion kWh.

The world's major wood pellets producing countries are looking to Taiwan, such as the United States, Vietnam and Canada. Vietnam has even become the second largest wood pellet producer in the world, overtaking Canada. And nationally, Vietnam's wood product exports are more than 70% for furniture and interior applications, 7% for wood-based panels, 17% wood chips and 5% for wood pellets. And to produce these products, Vietnam also imports large amounts of wood from more than 114 countries and 700 species / subspecies, amounting to $ 3.1 billion in the form of logs, sawnwood and plywood and imports almost 2 million cubic meters of tropical hardwood.

Basically, the major wood pellet producing countries are competing to convince Taiwan as a user or buyer of wood pellets about the supply capability, including quantity and quality, logistics reliability and sustainability of its supply. Although the Japanese and Korean markets continue to grow, penetration into a new market will add an opportunity to these producers. Even in Japan, many new power plants are being built so that the need for wood pellets is also increasing. In addition, the increase in the cofiring ratio in power plants in Japan will also increase the demand for wood pellets.

And globally according to Hawkin Wright, wood pellet sales are the highest among other biomass fuels, which is more than 27 million tons/year in 2025. While FutureMetric that the market for wood pellets for industry (industrial pellet fuel) can reach 55 million tons in 2030. Thus the need for wood pellets will continue to increase with an average of more than 5.5 million tons per year so that the production of wood pellets. Indonesia still has great potential to become a world wood pellet producer because of the potential raw materials that can be sought, both from wood and forestry industry waste and from energy plantations. With a location that is not too far from Taiwan (compared to wood pellet producing countries such as the United States and Canada) so that logistics or transportation costs are cheaper, the opportunity to compete is also quite large. In addition, PKS (palm kernel shell) are also an alternative biomass fuel besides wood pellets and as a producer of palm oil / CPO or the owner of the largest palm oil plantation in the world, Indonesia is number one for that. 

Cogeneration in Palm Oil Mills with Pyrolysis, Initial Steps in Biochar Production and Implementation

The analogy is like cofiring carried out in coal-fired power plants by mixing biomass fuels with a certain ratio as an effort to decarbonize the energy sector in power plants. While in palm oil mills, cogeneration with pyrolysis is an innovative initial step to enter the carbon negative era with the application of biochar, the main product of pyrolysis. And because all palm oil mills use biomass fuel for their mill operations, they are already based on carbon neutral fuel, unlike coal-fired power plants which are based on carbon positive fuels because they come from fossils.

Unlike cofiring which mixes coal and biomass fuels with a certain ratio and then burns them together in a furnace such as pulverized combustion, cogeneration is done by producing energy separately but the energy output is for the same use or especially the same boiler. This is done because the types of fuels may be different, such as solid fuels with liquid fuels or the technology for producing the energy is different. With this cogeneration, it means that not all energy is produced from one energy source or energy from cogeneration is a secondary energy source to meet total energy needs, and in the case of cogeneration in this palm oil mill, energy from combustion is still the primary energy.

Then why not just do full pyrolysis? It is easier, gradually for palm oil mills to adopt pyrolysis technology and its characteristics. Because (slow) pyrolysis aims to maximize solid / biochar, the by-products in the form of excess energy (syngas and biooil) as a source of boiler fuel, the calorific value is not as much as combustion which is indeed intended to maximize heat. Only about 1/3 of the excess energy contributes (cogeneration) as boiler fuel. In other words, if full pyrolysis is carried out directly, the amount of biomass as raw material for pyrolysis becomes 3 times greater or the pyrolysis unit becomes very large so that all palm oil mill biomass waste is used, and the mill cannot sell its palm kernel shells.

What are the benefits obtained by palm oil mills if they carry out cogeneration with pyrolysis for biochar production? Among the biochar products, it can save fertilizer use in oil palm plantations, overcome the problem of empty oil palm bunches (EFB) so that palm oil mills can achieve zero waste, palm kernel shells (PKS) that have been used for boiler fuel can be sold to increase income, the productivity of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) of palm oil increases, the application of biochar in palm oil plantations is also a climate solution (carbon sequestration / carbon sink) so that it can get carbon credit compensation and with good waste management, even zero waste and the application of biochar in palm oil plantations, palm oil companies will get a good image in terms of the environment and sustainability.
 

Urgency of Biochar Production Industrial Capacity

The provision or application of biochar to agricultural land follows the 4Rs rule, namely the right source (appropriate biochar raw material), right place (appropriate application area), right rate (appropriate dosage) and right timing (appropriate time). The physical and chemical properties of biochar differ depending on the raw material and production process. By following the 4R rules, biochar performance can be maximized. The effect of biochar on plants will be clearly visible (significant) when the 4R rules are met. With a dose / rate reaching 20 tons / ha (depending on the influencing condition factors), the need for biochar is also large. This is why biochar products are rarely sold online, namely because of the large volume.

Unlike soil amendments such as compost, the effects of biochar can be felt for quite a long time or for several types of agricultural crops, namely not only in one planting season, but repeatedly. This also makes the provision or application of biochar not as frequent as compost. And in the end, of course, the economic aspect is a determining parameter whether biochar makes agricultural businesses more profitable or not. The price of biochar on the market is an important concern for users or farmers.

The lack of biochar production in Indonesia is currently a barrier to biochar application in large agricultural lands, even when farmers' awareness of biochar is also increasing. This is the driving force for the importance of adequate biochar production, especially industrial capacity. Only with adequate biochar production can biochar application in agricultural lands or degraded lands be carried out optimally. The urgency of industrial capacity biochar production is even greater, especially when the biochar production also gets carbon credit, of course this will be even more interesting.

Biochar and Food & Energy Security

As the population increases, so does the need for food and energy. This is why food and energy production must also be increased. Increasing food production is closely related to the quality and quantity of land. However, although the quantity of land is very large, its quality tends to decline so that plant productivity automatically also decreases. The decline in land quality or land damage occurs on very large areas of land up to millions of hectares. With the area of ​​sub-optimal and degraded lands reaching hundreds of millions of hectares consisting of 122.1 million hectares of dry land; 8 million hectares of post-mining land; 24.3 million hectares of critical land; a total of around 154.4 million ha, it can be said that the potential loss of food products also reaches millions of tons. Meanwhile, damaged land will be further damaged if no repair efforts are made. Efforts to upgrade or improve the quality of this land should be an important priority in efforts to achieve food and energy security.

Biochar application is a solution for improving these lands. Raw materials for biochar production are also very abundant, including dry palm oil EFB of around 30 million tons/year, bagasse of 2 million tons/year, corn cobs of 5 million tons/year, cassava stalks of 3 million tons/year, waste wood of 50 million tons/year, rice husks of 15 million tons/year, cocoa shells and so on. With the application of biochar, agricultural productivity can increase by an average of 20% or even up to 100%. If applied on a macro or national scale, say with a 20% increase in production, for example, rice production will increase to 36 million tons/year from the previous 30 million tons/year, corn will increase to 18 million tons/year from the previous 15 million tons/year, crude palm oil or CPO to 60 million tons/year from the previous 50 million tons/year. This will save land use so that the opening of forest land for food crops and (bio)energy such as food estates may not be necessary or at least slow it down. But why until now has biochar not received attention and been used as a solution?

In addition, biochar production with pyrolysis will also produce a number of by-products that can be used for energy applications or others, as in the diagram above. Many agro-industries require drying in their production processes, so this is an additional advantage of using pyrolysis technology for biochar production. While from the environmental aspect, biochar is also a carbon sequestration so that it is a climate solution and can get carbon credit. Likewise in waste management, because the raw material for biochar is biomass waste from agriculture, plantations and forestry, even from organic waste, the pyrolysis and biochar business is also a solution to this problem.

Optimizing Pyrolysis and Biochar in the Palm Oil Industry

Indonesia's CPO production currently reaches around 50 million tons per year with a land area of ​​around 17.3 million hectares. This means that the average CPO production per hectare is only 2.9 tons or per million hectares produces 2.9 million tons. If biochar is used and there is a 20% increase, it means there is an increase of 10 million tons of CPO per year and this is equivalent to saving around 3.5 million hectares of land, or the use of biochar will slow down forest clearing (deforestation) for palm oil plantations.

The average speed of Indonesian palm oil plantation area is 6.5% per year or equivalent to about 1 million hectares per year for the last 5 years, while the increase in palm oil fruit production or FFB (fresh fruit bunches) is only 11% on average. Even the largest expansion of palm oil land occurred in 2017, which increased by 2.8 million hectares. By opening 1 million hectares of forest, national CPO production only increased by 11%, while without the need to open forests, namely with the application of biochar, there could be a 20% increase in productivity. And the 20% increase in FFB yield (fresh fruit bunches) using biochar is a low estimate.

With the number of palm oil mills in Indonesia reaching more than 1000 units and tens of millions of tons of biomass waste, especially empty palm fruit bunches (EFB), the volume of biochar production produced is certainly very large. In addition, pyrolysis technology can replace combustion technology which is generally used in palm oil mills to produce steam for electricity production and sterilization of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) in CPO production. With pyrolysis raw materials using palm oil tankos and being able to replace palm kernel shells, 100% of palm kernel shells (PKS) can be sold or exported. The sale of palm kernel shells or PKS (palm kernel shells) will certainly provide additional attractive benefits for the palm oil company. Palm kernel shells or PKS are the main competitors of wood pellets in the global biomass market.

In addition, the use of biochar also saves fertilizer use and the highest operational cost on oil palm plantations is fertilizer so this is very relevant. Tens of billions of costs spent on fertilizer can be reduced by using biochar, especially since the biochar comes from its own waste so that it will automatically become a solution for biomass waste management. Including biopesticides and liquid organic fertilizers can also be produced from the pyrolysis process. Carbon credit is the next business potential. This is because the application of biochar to the soil for agriculture or plantations is an effort for carbon sequestration / carbon sink.

The benefits that can be obtained from this biochar carbon credit are also large, even globally biochar carbon credit ranks first or more than 90% in Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) recorded in cdr.fyi. However, there are indeed many large biochar producers who do not sell their carbon credits because of the methodological requirements of standard carbon companies such as Puro Earth and Verra, and these biochar producers are comfortable with their biochar sales business, especially since these producers have existed (established) since before carbon credits were available for biochar. 

Problems of Wood Harvesting from Calliandra Energy Plantation and High Potassium Content in Wood Pellet Ash: Two Things That Need Attention

The factor of production efficiency and standard and stable product quality is the mindset of the industry, including for the wood pellet industry from the calliandra energy plantation. Manual wood harvesting operations make production efficiency low. The high daily need for wood pellet raw materials from energy plantations requires mechanization equipments for harvesting the calliandra plantation. Meanwhile, calliandra wood pellet products with high ash content containing potassium also require certain treatments so that the wood pellet products meet the standards for power plants in general. The stability of production quality and quantity is closely related to the quality of the production equipment used. These two things must be an important concern for wood pellet producers from calliandra energy plantations with large capacity and export orientation.

The wood pellet industry from the calliandra energy plantation is new, so there are not many references. The history or the origin of this industry comes from the project of the Ministry of Forestry of the Republic of Indonesia at that time which created an incubator-scale industry as a pilot for the production of wood pellets from the calliandra energy plantation located around Geger Hill, Bangkalan, Madura, East Java about 12 years ago. At that time, there were actually several wood pellet industries operating, but all of these wood pellet factories or industries used raw materials from wood industry waste, such as sawmill industry waste, barecore industry waste, plywood industry waste and so on.

Calliandra trees are also not new plants to the public. This tree has been widely planted but previously with different purposes, namely for reforestation, for animal feed or for honey bee farming. While for bioenergy purposes or wood pellet production, planting calliandra trees in the form of energy plantations is something new. That is why in the early stages, calliandra wood harvesting was still done manually and this was ineffective and inefficient on large-capacity plantations. In addition, the wood pellet product has not been analyzed or examined completely / comprehensively so that the high potassium content (ash chemistry) in the ash has not been detected. When the requirements for the maximum content of potassium / potassium must be met, special treatment needs to be done.

In addition, an important thing to note is the target types of products produced. If the calliandra plantation not only produces wood as raw material for wood pellet products, but also processes leaves for animal feed, then the harvesting mechanism is very influential. The leaves from the calliandra plantation must also be harvested effectively and efficiently or the same as the wood products. This could be, for example, the trees and leaves are harvested together and then taken to a place and separated to be processed individually. Or it could be that the wood and leaf products have been separated at the time of harvesting, then each goes to its respective processing unit. The equipment used must also be different according to the choice of the harvesting mechanism. Meanwhile, honey products from bee farms that utilize calliandra nectar are not affected by this mechanism, this is a separate honey production process and is related to the flowering season of the calliandra tree itself.

Along with the global decarbonization trend, the prospects for calliandra plantations are increasingly bright. It is predicted that many calliandra plantations will be created, which are intended primarily for bioenergy production such as wood pellet production, and this is in line with the carbon neutral scenario that supports the net zero emission program. The use of wood pellets is mainly for fuel in coal-fired power plants through the cofiring mechanism. In the next stage, it is possible to use 100% of the power plant fuel using wood pellets (fulfiring). The high potassium content is generally a problem in applications for this power plant, although there are types of power plants that technically do not have a problem with the potassium content, but the production of wood pellets from calliandra with low potassium content is certainly preferred.

Optimizing Calliandra Energy Plantations for Energy, Food and Feed, Is It Possible?

Calliandra energy plantations as the name implies are indeed prioritized or for the main purpose of producing energy from biomass, either wood pellets or just wood chips. This is because wood is the main product of the energy plantation, while leaves and flower nectar are by-products or are considered waste from the wood pellet or wood chip business. However, if the use of leaves for animal feed and flower nectar for honey production has an economic value that approaches or even exceeds the wood pellet product, then it will be a different story. Calliandra leaves, like indigofera leaves and glicidia / gamal leaves, have a high protein content, while this protein element is the most expensive source of nutrition of all the elements in animal feed products, while calliandra honey is one of the best quality honeys compared to other honey products such as acacia honey, kapok honey, rubber honey and so on.

Synchronization between honey and wood production is very important in the energy plantation to maximize profit. In honey production, the first time the calliandra flowers and the next flower cycle are very important. Don't let it be that just because of ignorance of the flower cycle, many benefits that should have been obtained are lost. In addition, for sustainable and optimal honey production, not only calliandra nectar is needed, but also a number of certain plants as support, both for additional bee feed and for making beehives. When all that is available is calliandra nectar, honey production will be maximized but will not be sustainable because the bee colony will shrink and then disappear. This is the importance of plantation engineering with a number of species or types of certain plants if honey production is also an important product in the calliandra plantation-based business.

Calliandra leaves in abundance will automatically be obtained when the calliandra trees are cut down or harvested. The calliandra leaves need to be separated from the wood and twigs to be used for animal feed. Animal feed products from calliandra leaves can be in the form of fresh leaves or processed leaves in the form of pellets, or hay. This makes it possible to have a leaf pellet factory in addition to the wood pellet factory. With an estimated leaf volume of 1/4 of the wood but the price of leaf pellets is around 3 times the price of wood pellets. So the profit from utilizing leaves into pellets (leaf pellets) is very large, estimated at 1/2 to 3/4 of the wood pellet turnover. This is certainly a serious consideration and cannot be ignored.

A comprehensive understanding of calliandra plantations for energy, food and feed is indeed very important to maximize profits from calliandra plantation-based businesses. This will encourage the calliandra energy plantation to grow further. In addition, the legality aspect and land selection for the location of the calliandra plantation. This is because, especially for wood pellet products in general, it is for export orientation and especially for Japan and Europe, environmental or sustainability certification is very important and even required so that the legality aspect (which is clear and clean) and land selectivity according to its designation including the history of the land are also very important. So optimizing calliandra energy plantations for energy, food and feed is possible if the terms and conditions are met.

Unlike Honeybees, Why Does the Development of Energy Plantations Get Little Attention from the Goat/Sheep and Cattle Livestock Industry?

Along with the global decarbonization trend, energy plantations are increasingly developing in Indonesia. The creation of these energy plantations has the main purpose of producing biomass fuels such as wood chips and wood pellets. Wood chip production because it is easier and the production equipment is easier and cheaper is usually done before wood pellet production and for more details can be read here. In addition to the use of wood as the main product of energy plantations, by-products that can be produced from energy plantations are animal feed from the use of leaves and honey from honey bee farms. And with the utilization of all parts of the tree (whole tree utilization), the energy plantation-based business is not only more profitable, but can also remain sustainable.

The honey production that can be produced from the development of energy plantations will also be very large, namely tons or even hundreds to thousands of tons in proportion to the area of ​​the energy plantation. Moreover, the plants cultivated are red calliandra whose nectar will produce one of the best quality honey. Regarding the development of the energy plantation, even API (Indonesian Beekeeping Association) responded optimistically to the development of the energy plantation, because in the next 5 years it is targeted that honey production will increase by 300% so that the import of tens of thousands of tons of honey from China can be reduced and even be sufficient, more details read here. In addition to honey, several derivative products will also be produced from honey bee farming, namely royal jelly, bee pollen, bee wax and bee venom which also have many benefits. The motto "Gertakanlah" namely the Bee Feed Planting Movement is very much in line with the development of this energy plantation.

But this condition is different from the world of animal husbandry, especially ruminant livestock, namely goats/sheep and cattle. In fact, Indonesia's meat needs are also very large, most of which are still met by imports. Unlike beekeeping which is responsive to the development of the global decarbonization trend, namely more specifically with the energy plantation, the world or livestock industry players have not responded to this, even though the production of feed from this energy plantation will also be very large. Even the main element of animal feed from red calliandra leaves is protein and protein is the most expensive element of animal feed nutrition. In addition, with this livestock, it is also possible for integration to occur as in the diagram above. Integration will provide optimal benefits and production becomes efficient, thus providing even greater benefits.

Stationary Auger : Industrial Pyrolysis for Indonesia and SE Asia

Global biochar production in 2023 is estimated to reach 350 thousand tons or equivalent to 600,000 carbon credits and is expected to continue to increase. From an economic perspective, revenues from biochar producers, distributors, value-added producers and equipment manufacturers exceeded $600 million in 2023, with a CAGR of 97% between 2021 and 2023. Revenues are projected to grow to nearly $3.3 billion in 2025. The existence of carbon credits is the second largest motivation for biochar production. With the existence of carbon credits, there has been a significant increase in biochar production from before. In 2023, this biochar carbon credit contributed the largest amount, namely 90% of carbon removal in the voluntary carbon market according to data from cdr.fyi.

And even biochar production where the income from direct sales of biochar is not that big or in other words they rely on income from biochar production then it is still a profitable business. As a tropical country, Indonesia can be said to be a biomass heaven both from agricultural / plantation biomass or forestry. If the biomass is converted into biochar then the production will be very large as well as the carbon credit. Direct sales of biochar (physical biochar) can also be done well because there are so many sub-optimal lands that can be repaired or upgraded using biochar, such as dry lands, critical lands, post-mining lands and so on, which amount to tens or even hundreds of millions of hectares.

Nearly 80% of biochar producers in 2023 will fall into the medium, large, and very large categories

The selection of production equipment that can produce certified biochar so that it can get carbon credit is important besides maximizing production capacity, it requires adequate production equipment. Stationary auger pyrolysis equipment is the right choice to meet the above requirements. In addition to producing biochar as the main product, by-products such as excess heat, biooil and syngas are additional benefits of the pyrolysis process with the stationary auger. The utilization and monetization of these by-products are an increasing driving force for biochar production with the stationary auger. Currently, there are still many biochar producers who do not have certification or standards for carbon credit, this also makes them unable to get income from carbon credit or just business as usual with biochar sales. Of course, this is not attractive to companies that will produce large-capacity biochar.

But why is biochar production in Indonesia and Southeast Asia still very small and not many people even know about biochar? This is related to low awareness of climate, sustainability and the environment and more specifically to biochar. Biochar as a solution to improve soil fertility so that productivity increases (both agricultural/plantation crops and forestry) as well as a climate solution with carbon sequestration. But with the high problem of climate awareness, sustainability and the environment, especially with the economic driving force in the form of carbon credits, it seems that the story will be different in the coming years. But there are indeed reasons related to the low participation of biochar producers in the carbon market, namely the costs and difficulties in obtaining certificates to sell carbon credits, as well as the costs of participating in carbon marketplaces. But with the large production capacity of industrial capacity with stationary auger equipment, the costs and difficulties in obtaining carbon credits will be commensurate with the benefits obtained.

If We Don’t Cut Emissions, Creating Carbon Sinks is Irrelevant

The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is already high so it must be reduced to save the earth. Efforts to reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere apparently cannot simply absorb CO2 from the atmosphere (carbon capture and storage). Maximizing the absorption of atmospheric CO2 but on the other hand CO2 emissions continue to increase, it will be very difficult (read: impossible) to reduce the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, let alone to a certain target agreed upon by the global community. So what makes sense is that CO2 emissions are not increased again so that the concentration does not increase further and existing CO2 is reduced to a certain level as targeted.

In practice, the production of wood chips and wood pellets as carbon neutral renewable fuels will complement each other with biochar. Wood chips and wood pellets do not add CO2 emissions and biochar absorbs CO2 as a carbon sink (carbon sequestration) or carbon negative. The application of biochar as part of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is currently developing the fastest compared to other CO2 reduction efforts (CDR / Carbon Dioxide Removal). Biochar leads in CDR credits in the voluntary carbon market (VCM), namely with more than 90% globally in 2023 as stated in the cdr.fyi database. From this data, it is estimated that at least 350 thousand tons of biochar have been produced globally in 2023 with an estimated 600,000 units or more of CDR credits (Carbon Credit).

And as in Europe, namely in 2023 there are a total of 48 new biochar plants, installed and operating, although 7 plants are closed, but a total of 41 biochar plants or an estimated total of 171 biochar plants are operating. And in 2024 there are an estimated 51 new biochar plants in Europe or in 2024 the total number of biochar plants is estimated to grow to more than 220 units. In terms of biochar volume, there is an estimated increase of 75,000 tons in 2023 and in 2024 the increase in production to 115,000 tons. Electricity production with 100% biomass fuel and equipped with carbon capture and storage (CCS) devices will also absorb CO2 or carbon negative, but this method is expensive and slow to develop. While biomass and coal cofiring because the cofiring ratio is small, efforts to reduce CO2 emissions are not too significant but cofiring is indeed the easiest entry point for using renewable energy in , especially in the energy or power generation sector (coal power plants). And in the end, creating a carbon sink, but the emission source is not reduced (cut), then it is the same as a lie or an irrelevant effort.

Wood Chip Production First, Then Wood Pellets

Many biomass energy entrepreneurs start their business with wood chip production. This is quite reasonable because in addition to the easy production process, cheap investment in equipment and easy market. But over time to increase profits, wood pellet production becomes an option. Technically, wood pellet production requires a series of equipment more than wood chip production, even wood chip production can be one of the stages of the overall wood pellet production process, namely the size reduction stage, especially if the raw material for wood pellets is from logs or pieces of wood. The wood pellet production process is more complex, production equipment is more expensive but also provides better profit expectations. This is certainly a driving force in itself and is considered commensurate between the costs incurred and the profits obtained.

Wood chip and wood pellet products also have the same use, namely for fuel or energy sources. With experience in the wood chip business, it will also provide experience in the dynamics of the renewable energy business, especially biomass energy. Along with the high awareness and demand for renewable energy, especially energy from biomass, a number of fossil energy companies have begun to develop renewable energy as an effort to the energy transition. And a justice energy transition with gradual implementation is the best route, for more details read here. In addition, wood chip production that requires a certain particle size will also produce waste (undersize) that can be used for wood pellet production, for more details read here.