INTERVIEW: Biochar producer targets megatonne scale by 2030

Quantum Commodity Intelligence – The 17 western US states have enough unused biomass to support at least 300 biochar plants and generate carbon removals of more than one gigatonne over project lifespans, the founder behind local scale-up Carbon C2 told Quantum on Tuesday.

Last week, the company listed its first of 10 facilities on Finnish registry Puro.earth, offering one million credits as forward sales, making it by far the largest biochar listing in the market currently.

The volume corresponds to the company's first few years of output, but Carbon C2 has a bigger goal to generate at least one million tonne of carbon credits per year by 2030, said Kevin Corbett, the company's founder.

"Our project has become more and more ambitious each time," said Corbett, who spent 16 years at semiconductor multinational Intel building the company's platforms, followed by several years in private equity as well as the entertainment and motor industries.

"My expertise is scale," the entrepreneur also said, adding: "One of the things I learned at Intel was copy exact. Every plant is exactly the same... ideally we should be able to take the same parts from one plant and put them in another plant and vice versa."

"This saves costs, reduces complexity and deliver high quality operations."

Carbon C2 plans to use containerised pyrolysis machines that can easily be built, dismantled and transported to within 25 miles of sources of biomass in order to minimise handling costs, it says.

Each plant can be set up in "weeks", process up to 400 metric tonnes of woody biomass throughout the day and "moved as project sites change over the years", says the company in a brochure sent to investors and seen by Quantum.

To staff each plant, the company plans to hire three staff per shift, or around nine people per plant, 10 truck drivers and a general manager.

"The team will be paid better than prevailing wages and drive significant new source of income in the small communities living near the forests," says Corbett.

On an annual basis, each facility will consume 120,000 t of biomass, produce 30,000 t of biochar and generate up to 128,000 t of carbon credits, assuming 330 days of run time, according to the company's calculations.

Corbett says he has built a standardised model down to the financing for each project in order to attract as much money to the biochar sector as possible.

"I'm trying to just dial that clock forward as fast as possible...in my model, I use the solar terminology and I created biochar terminology equivalents," says the entrepreneur.

Biochar against wildfires

The Sacramento-based entrepreneur says Californian forests have been neglected and need to be thinned out to manage the risk of wildfires, thus providing a ready source of wood-based waste to turn into biochar, which can then be spread onto farming land.

The company has struck a supply agreement with forest authorities for 12.5 million t of biomass per year within different parts of California.

It has also secured community and regulatory approval for two sites in Dorris and McCloud in the Klamath national forest, in Northern California, with eight other locations already identified.

"Over a 10- to 15-year period, just in that one area, there's millions and millions of tonnes of biomass that need to be pulled out. So we ended up scaling our plans up and basically working together to put 10 of these plants in 10 locations," said Corbett.

"The northern forests have been mismanaged and are too thick and so they are all going to burn down if we don't get them thinned quick."

Other biochar firms are also eyeing the area, but Corbett says there is enough biomass for "hundreds" of plants across the state.

"Ideally 10 corporations come join us as we're reviving the livelihood of these very hard working communities."

The wood waste will be transported to biochar facilities thanks to seven EV trucks, while a further three EV trucks will handle the biochar produced, according to its plans for each facility.

"We stay within 25 miles of the project, so you can do three trips a day, whereas if you're 50 or 60 miles away, you can only do one or two trips a day," he said.

Carbon C2's credits are currently on offer for between €125/tCO2e ($137) over a nine-year period or €195/tCO2e ($214) over five years.

He estimates the company can bring costs below $100 once it obtains a critical mass of production capacity.

"The market's going to keep bouncing somewhere between $100 and $200, and I think the big buyers aren't going to want to pay $200 (in the long term)."

"Our goal is to get under $100 of credit after the factory is paid off," he also said.

The biochar itself will be available at zero or minimal costs to local farmers to incentivise usage, thus helping to contain drought risks in the region.

"We were going to sell the biochar itself, but as I went through this journey, I learned about additionality. We want to be a leading example on additionality. The priority right now is to provide the biochar to the underserved farmer at no cost," Corbett also said.

He added: "And then what that means then is the carbon credit, that's why the carbon credit is on the higher side of $150."