Hi there, We are working to present a project using the agricultural waste from olive, carob, almond and fruit trees as well as wood cuttings from abandoned forest areas. Current practice is to burn biomass under the sky for which a fire licence from the mayor's office is required. These licences will be discontinued within the next 2-3 years and current trend is to buy shredder devices for tractors rather than produce biochar. We have a total area of some 1200 ha (excl. the forest areas) and estimated roughly that we could get to 60-80 tons of biomass p.a. if we get everyone the larger farmers to join in. Feedstock from smaller farmers would be on top also. Attached photos from the shredded biomass from olives to keep on the field as mulch. Olives here produce 1 ton of biomass per year on average. Currently waiting for data on the split of usage for the total area and also for the forestry side to decide whether small & mobile or large & central for the pyrolysis device(s). Other details & photos to follow as we are making progress. Best wishes to all Jochen Martin
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Dear Jochen, Good morning, these pictures certainly show the scale of the biomass quanitity. If the open fire regulations are an issue then a close retort would be the alternative to that. It would work with these shredded wood size pieces. We certainly would be recommending that this all gets biochared. Because in this current shred and spread style its all going to get broken down by microbes and the the Methane and CO2 will be respirated right back into the environment. Certainly mulshing like this can have positive impacts on the soil moisture levels, but biochar would have that water holding capacity where it holds the water in its structure at a level thats bio available.
I'm looking forward to hearing whether you're going to want to try and make use of those open fire laws for 2-3 years. Or whether you will aim to collect the much larger suppply currently needed for a retort.
Sincerely, Chris
Good afternoon! We are starting a similar project in the province of Granada and it would be interesting to stay in touch in the next few months. We will be starting our first trials hopefully around October and we can share it with you.