In a recent study published in the scientific journal Biochar, researchers Mengjie Han, Chenyi Yuan, Philippe Ciais, Daniel S. Goll, Yi Leng, Minxuan Sun, Nan Meng, Jiaxin Zhou, Xiaomeng Du, Dabo Guan, Wenjia Cai, Rui Wang, Jianxiang Shen, Liang Jing, Qing Zhao, and Wei Li examined the large-scale climate mitigation potential of integrating biochar production with dedicated bioenergy crop cultivation across China. The research introduces a novel framework termed biochar with biomass supply from dedicated bioenergy crops, which utilizes marginalized and abandoned croplands to grow hardy bioenergy species such as miscanthus, switchgrass, willow, poplar, and eucalyptus. By modeling the conversion of this targeted biomass within retrofitted power plants, the authors present a comprehensive life cycle assessment that highlights a highly scalable and financially competitive strategy for long-term carbon dioxide removal. This integrated blueprint directly addresses the primary limitations of alternative negative emission technologies, which are frequently constrained by sparse residual feedstockFeedstock refers to the raw organic material used to produce biochar. This can include a wide range of materials, such as wood chips, agricultural residues, and animal manure. More supply or prohibitively expensive storage infrastructure.

The investigation reveals that retrofitting the existing four hundred twenty-six biomass power plants in China can catalyze a substantial carbon sink without disrupting current agricultural or forestry systems. Under an optimized supply scenario utilizing seventy-three percent of available agricultural residues, half of forestry residues, and eighty-four percent of dedicated bioenergy crops, the technical capacity of these regional facilities can be entirely fulfilled. When supplied exclusively by bioenergy crops grown on just over three percent of the country’s available abandoned cropland, this pathway delivers a net carbon dioxide removal potential of twenty-five point eight teragrams of carbon dioxide per year. This mitigation performance proves highly comparable to the twenty-nine point eight teragrams of carbon dioxide achieved annually by processing traditional agricultural and forestry waste, demonstrating that cultivated energy crops can seamlessly substitute for wild residues and liberate those resources for alternative industrial applications.

A central finding of the manuscript centers on the dramatic economic advantages of the proposed biochar approach when compared directly against bioenergy crop cultivation with carbon capture and storage. Although underground geological carbon capture achieves a slightly higher absolute removal potential of twenty-seven point six teragrams of carbon dioxide per year due to high capture efficiencies, its implementation remains severely burdened by massive operational expenses and complex logistics. The net economic cost for the biochar and bioenergy crop pathway is evaluated at fifty-nine point six dollars per tonne of removed carbon dioxide. In stark contrast, the underground storage alternative demands an average of ninety-nine point nine dollars per tonne of carbon dioxide, driven primarily by the high expenditures associated with long-distance road tanker transit and compressed gas capture systems. The low breakeven carbon price threshold of the biochar strategy places it comfortably within viable commercial trading ranges, positioning it as an immediate, investment-grade asset class for developing carbon markets.

The authors extend their findings by evaluating a future scale-up scenario that looks far beyond the current technical capacities of existing power stations. By expanding the logistical collection radius of existing plants to one hundred kilometers and strategically building new pyrolysisPyrolysis is a thermochemical process that converts waste biomass into bio-char, bio-oil, and pyro-gas. It offers significant advantages in waste valorization, turning low-value materials into economically valuable resources. Its versatility allows for tailored products based on operational conditions, presenting itself as a cost-effective and efficient More facilities in biomass-dense but infrastructure-poor areas, such as Yunnan, Gansu, and Guizhou provinces, the national mitigation ceiling increases exponentially. If fifty percent of the country’s remaining unutilized biomass is successfully directed into this expanded network, the system can support over two hundred new facilities and remove one thousand three hundred fifty-eight point four teragrams of carbon dioxide annually. Under a maximum utilization scenario where one hundred percent of residual wastes and abandoned land crops are processed via one thousand eight hundred twenty-eight newly established plants, China’s total potential biochar carbon sink reaches an impressive peak of one thousand eight hundred eighty point four teragrams of carbon dioxide per year. This maximum capacity underscores the transformative role that scaled thermochemical conversion can play in supporting long-term national carbon neutrality targets.

Source: Han, M., Yuan, C., Ciais, P., Goll, D. S., Leng, Y., Sun, M., Meng, N., Zhou, J., Du, X., Guan, D., Cai, W., Wang, R., Shen, J., Jing, L., Zhao, Q., & Li, W. (2026). Carbon dioxide removal potential of biochar with biomass supply from bioenergy crops in China. Biochar, 8(43), 1-16.