Description

What are peat bogs?

Peat bogs are valuable ecosystems, storing water and large amounts of carbon as well as supporting biodiversity. Peat is a natural organic material created when biomass is accumulated in anaerobic conditions, such as below the ground water table. Under these in anaerobic conditions, microbial decomposition of the organic material largely stops, making the material inert and preserving it. The acidic conditions in peat soils further enhanced this preservation process. As such, large amounts of organic carbon have been stored in peat soils throughout history. Currently, 20% of Europe’s raised bogs are threatened by climate change and dewatering. In the Netherlands, too, about 20% of the peat has disappeared in the past 30-40 years.

Making new peat

(Re)store Carbon have come up with a method to make new peat called ‘Veenmakers’ in Dutch (translates to ‘Peatmakers’). Additional advantages of this method of making peat are improvement of the load bearing capacity of the soil, prevention of subsidence and the storage of large amount of carbon resulting in net CO2 removal. The innovative method of making peat has been patented by (Re)store Carbon. Similar to the natural process of forest becoming peat, this method applies biomass in the subsurface of peat soils below the ground water table. This brings the natural organic matter (the Biomass) under anaerobic, slightly acidic conditions of peat, where the natural decomposition processes stop. As a result, large amounts of carbon stored in the biomass are removed from the atmosphere for a very long period (>100 years), while the load bearing capacity of the soil is improved and subsidence is prevented. The stored biomass is can be sourced from various residual biomass sources, which would normally be left to decompose including forest and pruning residues, roadside grass, greenhouse plant residues and other plant residues. Because of its capacity to store carbon long term, with very low risk of re-release into the atmosphere (i.e. highest category in the Oxford Principles for Net Zero Aligned Carbon Offsetting), this method is complementary to other long-lived storage methods like Direct Air Capture Carbon Storage (DACCS). However, it has several advantages: 1) as it uses the power of nature to extract CO2 from the atmosphere, it does not need large amounts of energy for its carbon capture process, and 2) because its captured carbon is stored in peat bogs, there is no need for drilling the deep wells usually required for DACCS.

About the Removers

The Veenmakers methodology was developed by Paul Smits, Rene Leegte, Jurriaan Reijs and Renze Schram. This pilot project has been set up in Ter Aar and includes putting 290 m³ of wood underground, with a net storage potential of 126 tCO2.

Website

https://restorecarbon.eu/

Restore Carbon 2

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