This is Biochar: Harnessing Biomass to Power a Circular Economy
This story is one of four narratives in the International Biochar Initiative’s “This is Biochar” campaign. Explore the stories of the IBI Biochar Academy alumni making social and environmental impact through biochar.
Nestled in the northernmost landscape of Norway, amidst the mountains, forests, and plateaus of the Tana municipality, a biochar project poised for impact is in development.
Unni Beate Sekkesæter, a social entrepreneur, is leading an effort to make a community-driven biochar production plant a reality. The project, rooted in the region’s need for renewable energy and sustainable waste management, seeks to transform biomass into valuable resources through industrial scale production while providing resources such as biochar-based fertilizer for the area.
With the industrial building secured, feedstock agreements created, funding in the pipeline, and a labor workforce potentially available, Sekkesæter attended IBI’s 2024 Biochar Academy in Thailand to connect with industry experts and learn more about biochar production as the project moves toward approval.
From Microfinance to Biopower Tana
Sekkesæter’s introduction to biochar began in 2010 while working as an entrepreneur advisor for Microfinance Norway. Amongst the many different clients she worked with from across 45 different countries, someone from Senegal had attended a biochar course in China and returned home eager to share about biochar’s positive impact on soil and plant production.
“I was amazed,” said Sekkesaeter. “So, since then I kept my ears and eyes open.”
What is Biochar?
Biochar is a fine-grained, highly porous material that is made from biomass such as agriculture byproducts, forestry residues, and solid waste (sewage sludge). Biochar is made when biomass undergoes high-heat, limited-oxygen processes, i.e. via pyrolysis or gasification.
Biochar can be a superpower of regenerative, circular economies because sustainable biochar is produced from organic waste material — transforming waste into value. The biochar production of biochar not only removes carbon from the atmosphere, but also creates a valuable material for agriculture, land restoration, the built environment, and other uses.
Biochar is a powerfully circular way to fight climate change, with the potential to remove up to 6% of global emissions annually – the approximate equivalent of 3 billion tonnes of CO2 or the total emissions of 803 coal-fired power plants in one year.
“Biochar is an exciting solution to the world’s problems of waste and food security.
– Unni Beate Sekkeæter
While searching for the best affordable technology for pyrolysis, due to more clients interested in renewable energy, Sekkesaeter’s journey took her to Thailand, where she eventually took on a CFO role to support a renewable energy company. Her research expanded into pairing pyrolysis with other renewable technologies to create affordable energy, and she pushed for her employer to include waste-to-energy models in their offerings. Despite initial resistance, she persevered. Her vision for pilot pyrolysis plants took form and led to the birth of Biopower Tana — a subsidiary of the company’s business to begin with, and an independent business owned by Sekkesaeter since October 2022.
Despite this biochar project coming to life in an office in Bangkok, the on-the-ground impact will be found in Unni’s home country of Norway.
In Development: A Vision for Tana
Esther Utsi, Sekkesaeter’s business partner, had a dream to supply her community of Austertana with natural biochar fertilizer and renewable energy.
The region’s harsh winters often cause electricity shortages, exacerbated by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which has disrupted the import of electricity from Russia. This has led to increased reliance on more expensive electricity from Finland and Sweden, highlighting the urgent need for a sustainable, local energy solution — like biochar, and later electricity and heat production. The perfect Norwegian location for Sekkesæter’s vision was solidified, and taking the pyrolysis production plant from dream to reality began. Her model of progress may be a helpful guide for other biochar project managers getting their initiative off the ground.
Securing a suitable building site for Biochar Tana was already feasible; Sekkesæter had rental access to an industrial estate with an existing building, reducing the environmental impact and construction costs. The project is currently in process of acquiring permits to change the building’s use and ensure compliance with safety and quality standards.
With the location secured, identifying the biochar feedstock was equally as important. The Tana area is abundant in biomass to make an industrial-sized, waste-to-energy and fertilizer pyrolysis plant economically viable.
Sekkesæter has secured agreements with multiple actors in the waste value chain before biochar production has even begun. The plant would have access to roughly 6,000 tons of cattle manure and peat annually, 60 tons of clean wood pallets from the fish industry, and 500 tons of waste wood from municipal sources. Additionally, the project would utilize thinning wood from the forestry department and dead birch trees resulting from a larvae-borne disease, contributing to sustainable forest management.
“Our project is about taking waste that has value and turning it into something that can help us grow more food. We thought about the whole food chain; we thought about the use of waste and the prevention of waste, and the improvement of food and animal feed security in communities.”
Biopower Tana’s plant plans to produce physical biochar for animal feed and agricultural fertilizer. Many of their feedstock sources require sterilization to comply with food security rules, so the pyrolysis plant may require separate production processes — i.e. extra equipment for sterilizing and mixing the final product — to maintain high quality and meet regulatory requirements.
Stakeholders: The Key to Success
With many moving parts and permits needed, the project’s current momentum has been grounded in extensive discussions with various stakeholders in Tana.
“The municipality of Tana is very, very important,” Sekkesæter notes. Since 2019, when project development began, they have been collaborative and supportive of the initiative. Just this last year, the municipality applied for funding on the project’s behalf with a particular grant from Norway’s Directorate of the Environment — with a decision expected in August of 2024.
Funding mechanisms of the project at large have been a critical part of stakeholder engagement, as well; currently, personal funds, local corporate investments, and grants have allowed the project to move forward.
In Norway, the biochar industry is ripe for scaling, with the opportunity for biochar subsidies for farmers in four counties already, and more on the horizon and the Norway Biochar Network supporting small companies that are already in operation.
For entrepreneurs and companies preparing to launch biochar projects, Sekkesæter has three words of advice: “Ask, ask, ask.”
There are many experts out there willing to share their knowledge, and she advocates for reaching out to that existing community.
Biopower Tana’s reliance on experts expands to their project’s life cycle assessment (LCA), a requirement by carbon removal certification standards. Sekkesæter sees an opportunity for biochar’s role in carbon removal to expand significantly like what is happening in for instance Denmark, and she is pursuing this revenue opportunity for Biopower Tana. The project chose to work with third party project developers who understand the carbon certification process through Accend and Puro Earth. Down to Earth — a company that sells carbon credits from biochar production to Norwegian businesses in insurance, banking, and transportation is also a very important partner.
As far as other challenges in setting up the project, Sekkesæter refers to Norwegian public awareness and incentive: “[The industry] is still pretty new, it’s still difficult to sell the biochar to the farmers. Yet, everything has changed even in the last year. So, we’re much more optimistic about the situation now than two years ago.’
Looking Ahead: A Five-Year Dream
Sekkesæter’s perseverance has paved the way for the Biopower Tana project to take shape, promising to contribute to a circular economy for the region by turning waste into valuable resources, all while creating at least 10 jobs and promoting sustainable agriculture. Through her work, Unni hopes to inspire others to embrace biochar and its potential to drive positive environmental change.
“I’m pretty passionate about what I’m doing,” Sekkesæter. “It’s not work, it’s a passion. I know sometimes I can be a little bit too eager, but it’s all done with good intentions. I think that’s what makes things come to life.”
In the future, Biopower Tana would like to see the company’s pyrolysis plants expand to Thailand, as well as in more regions in Norway, such as Vesterålen — a region embracing environmental innovation alongside a growing forest management industry due to climate change impacts. Sekkesæter sees the next five years as a critical time for Biopower Tana to build the infrastructure for making real change in biomass waste management as an intersectional climate change solution.
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