Word: carbonization
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Burn almost any kind of organic material - corn husks, hazelnut shells, bamboo and, yes, even chicken manure - in an oxygen-depleted process called pyrolysis, and you generate gases and heat that can be used as energy. What remains is a solid - biochar - that sequesters carbon, keeping CO2 out of the atmosphere. In principle, at least, you create energy in a way that is not just carbon neutral, but carbon negative...
Biochar's ability to sequester CO2 has given new urgency to such research. "Reducing emissions isn't enough - we have to draw down the carbon stock in the atmosphere," says Tim Flannery, chair of the Copenhagen Climate Council, a consortium of scientists and business leaders linked to next year's United Nations Climate Summit. "And for that, slow pyrolysis biochar is a superior solution to anything else that's been proposed." Cornell's Lehmann is even more emphatic. "If biochar could be massively applied around the globe," he says, "we could end the emissions problem in one to two years...
...everyone agrees. "Biochar isn't a silver bullet, not by a long shot," says Dominic Woolf, a researcher at Swansea University in Wales. "You have to look at the big picture: pyrolysis itself produces carbon dioxide emissions, and you have to consider that when you try to determine biochar's capacity for sequestration." Lehmann says he welcomes the doubts, and notes that addressing them requires "investors willing to take the risk." Which is where chicken farmer Frye, with his small biochar operation, comes in as one of the few people out there actually making a business of it. With...
There's a sexy side to green technology. Have you heard of solar panels that use nanotechnology? Algae that can be raised to make carbon-neutral biofuel? How about devices that generate power from the motion of the ocean, or even backpack wind turbines - O.K., maybe...
...significantly higher costs to heat and cool our homes in the future. For poor families, especially those on fixed incomes, a drafty house can eat up a large chunk of their income in the winter. The leakier the home, the more money you're wasting - and the more carbon you're spewing. (See TIME's special report on the environment...