Biochar is highly porous charcoal that’s produced from organic waste.  Raw materials can be any forest, agricultural or animal waste products like woodchips, corn husks, peanut shells or chicken droppings.

The waste or “biomass” is fed into a metal barrel where it is cooked under intense heat.  Within a few hours the organic trash is transformed into charcoal-like pellets that can be used as fertilizer.

Gasses given off during the process can be harnessed to fuel vehicles or power electric generators.  There may also be some pharmaceutical applications for the by-products.

Biochar’s high carbon content and porous nature helps soil retain water, nutrients, protect soil microbes and ultimately increase crop production while acting as natural carbon sink by trapping CO2 in the ground.

Biochar helps clean the air by preventing rotting biomass from releasing harmful CO2 into the atmosphere and by allowing plants to safely store CO2 pulled out of the air during photosynthesis.

According to Christoph Steiner, a leading research scientist studying biochar, soil acts as an enormous carbon pool, increasing this carbon pool could significantly contribute to the reduction of CO2 in the atmosphere thus offering us a chance to produce carbon negative energy.

According to NASA scientist James Hansen, worldwide use of biochar could cut CO2 levels by 8 parts per million within 50 years.

There remain more large-scale tests that need to be performed before this biochar technology can be rolled out on a global scale.

But there are 3 billion people who are risking effects of climate change and this just may be a way for them to help solve this global problem and prosper at the same time.  Industries might turn their attention to farmers around the world and start paying them for their agricultural wastes.