News article, 30. May 2023

High ambitions for pyrolysis technology

The Danish Agriculture & Food Council is calling on politicians to act and set up a pyrolysis task force to help remove legislative barriers against pyrolysis.

Photo: Danish Agriculture & Food Council

Pyrolysis is an energy-efficient way of removing CO2 from the atmosphere. During pyrolysis, agricultural waste and residual products, such as straw, are converted into biochar, oil and gas. The biochar can then be used to fertilize fields without emitting CO2. This is precisely the reason why this process is essential for reducing CO2 emissions in agriculture.

Pyrolysis is an important tool in the fight to achieve the 2030 climate goals. According to the Danish agricultural agreement, brown bio-refining such as pyrolysis can process up to two million tonnes of CO2-e out of a total target of five million tonnes. The potential for this technology is therefore huge if the barriers are removed. There should, for example, be clear and consistent rules for spreading biochar on land. Today, a number of EU countries prohibit the spreading of biochar on agricultural land. Pyrolysis, therefore, needs to be recognised on an equal footing with other carbon storage technologies in Denmark and the EU.

“We hope the politicians will listen and be clear about the fact that pyrolysis is an existing technology, and that an inter-ministerial task force will be set up. Several government ministries are involved in this work, and there is no time for delay, as we have just seven years to cross the goal line in 2030. Therefore, it is essential that the ministries work together in a flexible and straightforward way,” says Hans Roust Thysen, Head of Climate Issues, Danish Agriculture & Food Council.

Time is of the essence. It is absolutely crucial that politicians act quickly if these goals are to be met. This is why it is essential to make the technology more user-friendly for farmers and companies. As it stands today, various regulatory barriers complicate the process for those who want to adopt this climate-friendly technology. In this respect, attention should be drawn to the fact that there is a lack of recognition that pyrolysis and the biochar it produces can be counted on as a CCS technology with negative carbon sequestration. In addition, there may be technical challenges in complying with the limit values for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PHA).

A pyrolysis task force can contribute to the creation of clear rules for the application of biochar on land, for instance, and thereby remove barriers that farmers and companies encounter when trying to adopt the CO2-storage technology.

If you would like to learn more about how pyrolysis technology works and how the technology can be used as an important tool in the fight against climate change, you can read more at:

New technology can halve agriculture's climate impact and introduce climate neutral air travel (agricultureandfood.dk)