The Biochar Summit 2023

SPEAKERS

Dr. Oliver Geden
German Institute for International and Security Affairs

In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its AR6 Synthesis Report: Climate Change 2023 in order to provide a complete picture of climate change and the available solutions.

Dr. Oliver Geden, Senior Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), was a lead author of the IPCC AR6 Working Group III (Mitigation of Climate Change) as well as a member of the Core Writing Team for the AR6 Synthesis Report.

Together with other researchers, he devised and convened the State of Carbon Dioxide Removal report - the first global assessment of the state of carbon dioxide removal (CDR). The project aims to build a community, bridge data gaps, and support the scale up of CDR responsibly and equitably.

Given his background and his focus on European and global climate policy, and particularly carbon dioxide removal, we are excited that we could win the policy expert and climate researcher as keynote speaker for the Biochar Summit 2023.

Christian Orsing
Mayor of Helsingborg

Chairman of the executive committee (Mayor) City of Helsingborg, Sweden

Claudia Kammann
Hochschule Geisenheim University

Hochschule Geisenheim University, Geisenheim, Germany

Gerard Cornelissen
Norwegian University of Life Sciences

Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) and Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Norway

Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management.

NGI - VOW
The main objective in this project is to use biological waste to create sustainable products for soil, air and wastewater treatment. The sustainable biochar sorbents will be optimized and tested in real-world contamination scenarios. Income will be generated through clean, valuable, internationally saleable biochar-based binders. NGI - BiocharNGI - BICEPS - Biochar integration in small cropping systems

Bart Tambuyser
Carboganic

Bart Tambuyser Managing Director of CARBOGANIC, is an agronomist active since 1996 in biomass. He holds a Bachelor degree in Horticultural biotechnology and a postgraduate degree in human ecology and marketing management. Bart is active in the biomass field since 1996 in the following domains: organic fertilizers and soil amendments, recycling of organic waste (composting, anaerobic digestion), renewable energy projects based on biomass feedstocks (cofiring, cogeneration, CHP), pyrolysis.

In 2004 he founded CAPAX. CAPAX is active in biomass feedstock strategies and biobased business development, where projects are realized by implementing design thinking strategies.

In 2020 Bart brought all his knowledge in respect to pyrolysis projects and pyrolysis materials together in the startup “CARBOGANIC functional biocarbon fillers”. Carboganic is specialized in tailoring different types of biocarbon, for so-called engineered composite applications. Within this field, CARBOGANIC developed specific biocarbon compounds for large scale 3D printing.

CARBOGANIC produces biocarbon based additives that are functional and at the same time decarbonizing!

Carboganic, Brussels, Belgium

Britt-Marie Alvem
Street Department Stockholm

Tree specialist, Landscape Architect LAR MSA, Street Department Stockholm, Sweden

Britt-Marie Alvem has been working for the city of Stockholm as a Landscape architect since 1997. In 2007 she began working for the traffic administration, specialising in urban trees. Street tree maintenance, developing new substrates including biochar, planting and selecting trees, and building tree pits are some of her main tasks.

Her presentation at the Biochar Summit will be a summary of how biochar is used in Stockholm tree planting pits and how it is specified, what we know and what needs to be specified further.

Mattias Gustafsson
Ecotopic

Biochar specialist & Co-founder of Ecotopic and Biokolprodukter, Sweden

Through his work as a process engineer in wastewater treatment, Mattias discovered pyrolysis and biochar in his search for alternative treatment methods in 2009. For the past 10 years, Mattias has supported organizations in starting production and use of biochar, developed regulations and certification systems and built the industry both in Sweden and internationally. Mattias was the project manager for the Stockholm Biochar Project and technical expert for Bloomberg Philanthropies. Mattias will be presenting the work of Biokolprodukter and EcoTopic regarding biochar applications in recycled structural soils with biochar, charcrete products for a climate solution in urban plant beds and spreading the knowledge from the Stockholm Biochar Project.

Oisik Das
Luleå University of Technology

Luleå University of Technology, Luleå, Sweden

Hamed Sanei
Aarhus University

Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

Hansjörg Lerchenmüller
Chairman Carbuna AG

Carbuna AG, Memmingen, Germany

Hansjörg Lerchenmüller is an entrepreneur, manager, and business angel who has co-founded/ invested in several start-ups in the fields of renewable energies and carbon removal. Hansjörg has a technical background as a physicist. He is co-initiator and chairman of the European Biochar Industry Consortium (EBI), chairman of the supervisory board of Carbuna AG, and co-founder of Carbonfuture GmbH.

Tobias Pape Thomsen
Roskilde University, Denmark

Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark

Tobias P. Thomsen is associate professor at Roskilde University (Denmark), at the Department for People and Technology. He has a chemical engineering background with an Msc in Sustainable Energy (biofuels) and a PhD in thermochemical biomass treatment both from the Technical University of Denmark. Has 15 years of experience related to development and optimization of systems for thermochemical conversion of organic resources with focus on pyrolysis and thermal gasification.

Marcel Huber
SynCraft GmbH

SynCraft, Schwaz, Austria

Marcel Huber is a trained mechanical engineer and graduated in process engineering at the university of applied sciences Innsbruck (MCI). From a research assistant at the MCI, he then developed to a research area manager. In 2009 he founded the company SynCraft together with 2 former students. SynCraft is now successfully building their unique reverse power plants worldwide, which leave a climate-positive footprint thanks to their valuable by-product biochar.

Paal Jahre Nilsen
Vow ASA

Vow ASA, Lysaker, Norway

Gerald Dunst
Sonnenerde

Sonnenerde, Riedlingsdorf, Austria

Morten Heick
Stiesdal, Denmark

Morten has over 15 years of experience building tech startups from the ground up. He is part of the business development team at Stiesdal, working on strategy, finance, IT, and policy development.

The main purpose of Stiesdal SkyClean is to develop and commercialize pyrolysis equipment for the production of energy and biochar, with a focus on industrialization, standardization, and large-scale production. Our SkyClean technology enables the production of carbon-negative fuel and biochar by pyrolyzing agricultural residues, using technology originating from the Technical University of Denmark. We have scaled up the technology and currently operate a 2 MW test unit. Our commercial-sized 20 MW pilot unit is currently being built next to a large biogas plant, where residues from the plant are used as feedstock for the pyrolysis unit. The energy generated in the form of heat is returned to the biogas plant, where it supports the separation of methane and CO2.

Jonatan Malmberg
Sweden

Specialist biochar and urban green infrastructure, Sweden

Jonatan Malmberg has extensive experience working in urban applications of biochar since 2013. Since 2020, he has been project leading the development of biochar for concrete and cement-based building materials for Biokolprodukter. The work involved the entire value chain of biochar, exploring different types of biochar, process steps, carbon tracking and potential applications within the construction sector. It has resulted in significant achievements, including the launch of the first prefab products in concrete for urban landscaping in 2021, and the launch of building products by Finja Betong in the fall of 2022. Jonatan is enthusiastic about the potential for biochar to revolutionize the building industry, particularly with the use of charcrete and biochar in cement-based building products. He is eager to present the work of Biokolprodukter at the Biochar Summit, where he will demonstrate the significant impact that biochar can have on the construction sector.

Julia Roth
CarStorCon / Carbon Instead, Germany

CarStorCon / Carbon Instead, Germany

Anna Sorelius
City of Helsingborg, Sweden

City of Helsingborg, Sweden

Cecilie Jonassen
VOW Green Metals, Norway

VOW Green Metals, Norway

Ondrej Masek
University of Edinburgh, UK

University of Edinburgh, UK

Helmut Gerber
PYREG GmbH, Germany

Helmut Gerber is one of three Managing Directors of PYREG GmbH, which he founded in 2009 as a spin-off from the Technical University of Bingen, after conducting several research projects at the university about pyrolysis and gasification since 1999. He is responsible for development, plant engineering and renewable energies at PYREG.

PYREG GmbH, Germany