UK Biochar Research Centre | About the UKBRC | People | Jason Cook

UK Biochar Research Centre > About the UKBRC > People

Charchive Standard Biochars

Jason Cook

photo of Jason Cook

Position:: PhD student
Home Page:: http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/s0880702

Background

After completing my first Degree in 1996 I was employed in the mineral exploration business. I worked on base metal and gold exploration in Portugal, Congo, and Kenya. In 1998 I moved companies and managed a diamond exploration team and subsequently became operations manager on a diamond mine in Angola. I returned to the UK to do a Masters Degree and then became country manager for Kenya for a gold exploration company in 2002. After some travelling and working delivering yachts for a year I went to work for an investment house in London for two years prior to starting my PhD.

Research

PhD. Thesis – The Techno Economic and Energetic Analysis of Integrating a Pyrolysis Biochar System Within a Working Arable Farm In Scotland. Aim – To analyse the sustainability of the integration and operation of a pyrolysis biochar system (PBS) within a working arable farm and whether this integration is economically and energetically viable using mathematical resource optimisation, life cycle analysis techniques and field scale biochar crop trials.

Key skills and highlights:

· Time was spent with Patpert Techno Systems in Pune, India on the construction and operation of pyrolysis and gasification equipment.

· Mathematical model construction. Designed and built to optimise resources within a real world operational setting.

· Fully commissioned and constructed a pyrolysis unit on an operational farm.

· Designed and implemented the largest biochar field trials in the UK.

· Energetic, carbon and economic modelling.

· Statistical analysis of data.

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