Charlotte O'Brien - BioBamboo: An Example of Eco-Restoration

Editor's Notes

1. Biomass in general and bamboo specifically is one of our most important tools for climate change reversal
2. Bamboo is a biomass with a back story and a documented 1500 uses.
3. It provides many environmental services
4. Bamboo is a member of the grass family who acts like a tree with lateral roots ideal for holding back erosion on steep hillsides and along rivers.
5. It balances the water cycle And according to UN FAO experiments in India it also raises the water table.
6. Bamboo is a fast growing cover for denuded soils.
7. This is the HCM trail in the 70s. The newly formed government offered a kilo of rice/ day to anyone who would plant bamboo.
8. There was no money for fertilizers, herbicides or pesticides. They just planted the bamboo and let the bamboo work its magic.
9. This is the HCM trail today.
10. And it is a soil rejuvenator which Dr. My Hanh, recipient of a UN award for her efforts with bamboo, wanted to prove
11. She wanted to prove that you could take some of the worst soil in the world so she choose her home town that was nicknamed the Iron Triangle for the number of bombs that were dropped in that area in the 60s. And she planted structural bamboo. This is four years later
12. What is most remarkable is what is happening to the soil under the bamboo. Bamboo works it magic.
13. How does bamboo do this? Bamboo is a Pioneer Plant – meaning it is a plant that will establish under difficult conditions and quickly improve the soil conditions.
14. Five years later the bamboo has created a beautiful understory.
15. As long as we are in Hawaii - check out this beauty that was 6 years old in this photo.
16. With106 stalks otherwise known as culms that day.
17. We’re not talking about your grandfather’s fishing pole bamboo.
18. Without human management it will grow for 10 to 12 years and start to die off. To keep it producing and drawing down C at a maximum rate you need to mark which year it emerges and harvest 25 to 30% of the plant mass every year.
19. When you decide to cut it all you need is a machete
20. Bamboo needs an economic driver
21. This is a true bi product of growing bamboo for the purpose of environmental services, economic uplift, timber replacement and finally biomass is the end result.
22. To build on what Tom was saying we need to focus on VCC - forget governments This is a job for we the people Global North Global South
23. It is an ancient culture but a little extra money from growing bamboo puts shoes on the kids
24. And gives the ladies a day out!
25. There are 1500 documented uses for bamboo
26. This bridge gets rebuild every year because the monsoons take it out
27. A little hotel
28. In about 1955 they started using non toxic borates to preserve bamboo
29. You can do it in a trough or in a pressure tank
30. But this treatment allows even millionaires to live in bamboo houses
31. With bamboo doors and stairs and floors
32. Joerge Strom builds bridges
33. Big bridges
34. Strong bridges
35. This is a bamboo house that I used to live in
36. No plywood – just woven bamboo walls – good enough for guests
37. Simon Valdez of Columbia
38. Uses high tech connectors
39. To make huge structures
40. And even churches
41. Rashmir was born in Katmandhu and trained as an architect
42. So that she could design bamboo houses
43. For Nepal’s Habitat for Humanity
44. And if you want the imperial plaster look – just trowel over the weavings.
45. Now China makes high value bamboo products
46. That replace timber products
47. We have all seen the bamboo flooring that is leaving that country by the ship loads.
48. By simple industrial techniques
49. Employing many people
50. And creating 5000 tons of sawdust per day nationwide
51. Unfortunately most of it goes into old fashioned boilers to create process heat. I say unfortunately because it could be efficiently pyrolyzed to get
52. Electrical output depends on efficiency of syngas conversion equipment. Thermochemical conversion also enables use of process heat for drying or other applications. Each system produces an additional 2.0MWTH thermal energy. Combined process heat and electrical energy totals 4.0MW.
53. Huge We are positioning ourselves to be the go to company for the appropriate pyrolysis equipment and the offtakers of BioChar so that we can maximize production and use of BioChar.