CARBON NEGATIVE - CLIMATE POSITIVE
CARBON-KAI
Growing prosperity for future generations through a carbon negative, climate positive Aotearoa New Zealand.
ABOUT
BiocharTP Ltd.’s goal over the next seven years is to develop, manufacture and facilitate the adoption and uptake, to livestock farmers, a range of Biochar based products which reduce GHG emissions on farm, while maintaining or improving animal health and productivity.
Carbon-kai: Trading name of our Animal feed supplement.
Carbon-kai is first and foremost methane mitigation tool providing a solution to the Emissions Reduction Plan targets for Agriculture with a CCM product that will reduce methane by at least 30%
The connected co-benefits are:
- A practical tool for farmers to increase productivity, while reducing emissions.
- Upcycling of forestry waste reducing slash left at site and associated environmental issues.
- Over 600 Employment opportunities and sustainable businesses in rural areas.
- Increased soil and water health
Abbreviations
Biochar: A high carbon product, traditionally used as a soil amendment product to sequester carbon into the soil while increasing soil health and productivity. Made from heating organic waste to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen.
CCM: Carbon Coated Minerals. Descriptive name for our next generation Biochar.
Recycling: the action or process of converting waste into reusable material.
Upcycling: reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as to create a product of higher quality or value than the original.
AFS: Animal Feed Supplement. In our case, a small volume of our CCM fed to the animal daily while milking or in a salt lick.
PAC: Powdered Activated Carbon
Background
International development of methane mitigation in ruminant animals with Biochar has been happening offshore for at least 13 years[1], BiocharTP commenced this project in Feb 2022 and our technical lead in Australia, Prof Stephen Joseph, has been academically involved in this subject for over 45 years.
Prior to our large scale on farm study, equipment has been purchased (including mini-biochar chambers), bench and farm scale biochar product manufacture, investigative trials undertaken for testing and evaluating beef and dairy cattle and sheep responses to our CarbonKai products.
A range of Carbon-Kai products have been developed at our facility in the Waikato with animal trials on our test Waikato farm. Products have also been sent for research and development evaluation to international laboratories.
Two trials have been conducted on Beef calves comparing weight gain and health between a Control herd and a Carbon-kai fed herd. The calves were in side-by-side paddocks and each fed 1kg per day of meal, one herd mixed with 40g of Carbon-kai.
Our first trial, measured mover 66 days produced an average 36.2% greater weight gain in the Carbon-kai herd over the Control herd (10.69kg heavier over the 66 days). We also noted that the herd had a much lower faecal egg count, not requiring worm drenching.
The 2nd trial with the same herd brought back together then randomly split, but now older, is still ongoing at the time we posted this. At this point the Carbon-kai herd has an 18.7% greater growth rate at 80 days than the control herd. While the growth rate in the Carbon-kai herd is lower than in the first trial, it is noted that this period was an abnormally very wet period. Studies internationally have also seen similar results during excessive wet periods – so this is something we will need to dive deeper into with the help of Animal nutritionists and more technical scientific help.
What’s Next?
The next stage for the BiocharTP project is to validate Carbon-kai products for methane reductions on a large scale working New Zealand Dairy farm. The proposed methodology includes measuring methane emissions from dairy herds over a milking a 15-month period.
The project will engage with science providers, technical partners, and University of South Queensland who have undertaken Dairy herd trials in the past with a similar product
The main aim of this Study is to measure, report and validate the methane emission response of dairy cattle that are fed on our carbon coated mineral (CCM) formulations in New Zealand, named Carbon-kai.
Key metrics that will also be monitored during the project:
- Methane emissions (feedlot, pasture feeder and animal eructions)
- Agricultural systems (stock feed rates, behavioural responses, water intake, distances travelled)
- Biophysical conditions (temperature, climate)
- Productivity (milk volumes and fat, protein)
- Animal weight
- Animal health (faecal deposits)
- Dairy effluent nutrient and N2O profile
These metrics will be measured across all products trialled including the control herd animals.
The trials in this proposal will provide a sensitivity analysis for different formulations and manufacturing techniques to optimise methane reductions, while not compromising animal health, productivity, and feed conversion efficiency.
Beyond the Trials
The Carbon-kai project has wider downstream benefits for developing a comprehensive business model with broad social, economic, cultural and environmental outcomes.
Economic:
- Provide world leading examples of methane sequestration and provide the world with high value, low carbon products
- Increase soil health and productivity
- Animal health and productivity gains
- Increasing bottom line profits to farmers (net income after cost of feed and emissions liabilities)
Environmental:
- Achieving and exceeding NZs emissions reduction targets for 2030
- Improve soil health
- Sequester thousands of tonnes of CO2 back into the earth each year
- Increased moisture retention in soils – reducing drought impacts
- Increase losses of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) to waterways
- Reduce the environmental footprint of food production including and emissions to atmosphere – a cleaner New Zealand.
Social:
- Creating rural jobs for iwi, hapu and rural families
- Enabling iwi, hapu and family groups to develop financially independent businesses
- Reducing concerns for climate resilience and the ability to meet our Paris Accord commitments
- Retaining and building circular rural economies
Understanding Methane in Animal Agriculture
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Global warming Potential (GWP100) of main Greenhouse gases
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Half life in years
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Current in atmosphere measurements
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CarbonKai minimum reductions
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- Main emissions in Animal Agriculture is Methane (CH4), not Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
- As a planet we only care about Green House gases (GHG) because of Global
- Cows only fart 5% of their methane – they Belch 95% of it.
- GHG forms a blanket over our atmosphere retaining some of the suns solar Too little and the planet would be too cold
- We do need some GHG to keep the planet warm – however Humans are currently making too much GHG, making the blanket too thick
- CO2is new Carbon from fossil Fuels and accumulates each year for 1,000 years
- CH4from animals is a recycled Biogenetic It is produced, then destroyed in 12 years.
- WithCO2 – you must get to Carbon Neutrality to stop This means to completely stop burning fossil fuels etc. Very Difficult
- With CH4 – you must focus on getting to at least Climate This only requires a reduction in CH4. Very Achievable
- Strong Reductions in Methane leads to strong reductions in Global warming
- Anything over 10 % reduction in methane will reduce global warming
- 35% is the target Methane reduction based on GWP* to greatly reduce global
Carbon-kai – Our Vision
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