Pyrolysis and The Price of Carbon. The Value of Biochar

Pyrolysis systems are a means to produce bioenergy products that can replace fossil fuels as well asproduce biochar. Biochar can be used as a soil amendment, where it also has a purpose as carbonsequestration. Although pyrolysis is a promising technology, it has not seen the large scaleimplementation that one might expect. This might however change if there was economic compensationfor the carbon sequestration service supplied by biochar. The purpose of the present work was toinvestigate at what carbon (C) price levels pyrolysis systems with combined biochar and heat generationwould become an economically feasible option in the Swedish agricultural sector. Furthermore, anobjective of the study was to investigate under what conditions the introduction of such a system wouldactually remain C negative, taking indirect land use change effects into account. The results for the studiedhypothetical case studies, indicated that a carbon price of approximately (sic)600-1200 per tonne C was necessary ifpyrolysis is to be economically viable. Concerning indirect effects, a land use change causing losses of morethan 40 and 80 tonne CO2/ha and year would make the pyrolysis systems net emitters of carbon.