Keeling Curve

Primary Project Category:

Project Summary / Description:

Farmers and forest managers face several challenges in converting to more climate-friendly agroforestry and carbon farming systems. Biochar is a profit multiplier. In many regions, however, adoption barriers to biochar are market-related. As co-composted fertilizer, it is an unfamiliar and expensive substitute. Fortunately, there are uses for biochar that create demand for a locally-sourced product in volume.

GVI met with key figures from Advanced Carbon Technology and Green Carbon Industries during the 2022 North American Biochar Conference. We share the belief that this application could provide a breakout for small on-farm production of biochar that would allow it to scale from the megaton range at present to the gigaton range by the end of this decade. We have joined together for this proof of concept project.

Regions of Operations:

How Project Affects Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions:

Replaces/avoids GHGs (e.g., projects that replace sources of GHGs, such as the burning of fossil fuels for electricity, heat, transport, or other energy uses), Removes/stores GHGs (e.g., projects that capture, sequester, or otherwise enhance the "sinks" that accumulate and store GHGs)

Best Estimate of GHG Avoidance/Reduction of This Project (Tonnes CO2 Equivalent/Year):

Impact on Underrepresented Groups:

To get to carbon-negative (net drawdown) we calculate that biochar should be sourced as locally as possible‚Äîless than 125 miles from plantation to pavement. This requirement means that scaling will come less from large central facilities and more from distributed farm, forest and marine aquaculture industries. That increases social, economic and ecological benefits while scaling faster at less cost. 

The beneficiaries of this decentralization will be typically underserved and economically depressed populations‚ÄîNative Americans; rural homesteaders and family farms; migrant laborers; and alternative intentional communities and ecovillages disproportionately populated by women, people of color, and youth. Our program will provide a model to monetize carbon drawdown by natural methods by employing novel uses for biochar from waste biomass that can scale. This should translate into good, green jobs in traditionally economically challenged areas.

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Mission Statement:

Global Village Institute is a non-profit organization focused primarily on the nexus between reversing climate change and human behavior. Over the past 45 years, this mission has taken us into the redesign of the built environment. Beginning in 1974 from a simple machine shop that made wind generators and Stirling engines within one of North America‚ first ecovillages, we were chartered as a tax-exempt charity in 1984 for the purpose of researching promising new technologies and their ethical implications. That work led us to co-found and serve as a regional hub for the Global Ecovillage Network and eventually to support projects on six continents. Our focus continues to be centered on reversing climate change by innovative means.