Today was a typically beautiful Aussie autumn day, and a trip to Somersby was an enjoyable outing, just one hour north of Sydney, to one of the many factories located in a bushland setting. So what about the sequestered carbon and the soil?Best Energies Australia claims to have developed some key technologies for a slow pyrolysis process using organic waste as such as greenwaste, poultry litter, nut shells, wood waste or animal manure. The outputs are syngas for electric generation (primarily used on-site) and a biochar end product which both locks away carbon and can be used for soil productivity. We were shown visuals of crops grown using the char under test conditions and the results seem impressive. But more importantly, according to Adriana Downie, Technical Manager, is the potential for the biochar to sequester carbon for thousands of years.
According to Adriana, there is a business opportunity in these waste plants and several potential revenue streams, including income from waste management, energy production, sales of the biochar product, and possibly also income from the carbon offset market. Each plant would have its own mix of revenue streams, and this would depend on local parameters and the type of feedstock.
Best Energies already has a test plant at Somersby - today, it was producing biochar for a small order. There has been considerable media interest in this technology, and now it's time for a larger plant. Contact Best Energies for the financial models, but the reasons to do this may be more than financial. The extra bonus is about becoming a leader in developing a relatively low cost way to reduce our global carbon footprint, at the same time as managing our organic waste and improving our food supply for a growing global population.
My picture of the Pyrolysis plant at Somersby
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