Renata Biochar Systems
Sprout is the mother company of Renata Biochar Systems, founded in 2009 in Fall City by Britton Shepard. Renata's aim is to develop local, sustainable biochar production from green waste and to use biochar in soils in landscape garden projects. Our work is integrated with the work of the intelligent and caring people of the Biochar Movement, in our neighborhood and around the world.
What is Biochar?
Biochar is charcoal used in soils. Essentially pure carbon, charcoal is lightweight, highly porous, and durable. In the ecology of living soil, it acts as a matrix which hosts the complex interplay of soil biota, plant roots, water, and nutrients. Recycling organic matter back into the soil in the forms of biochar and compost is an ancient yet new-to-us practice for developing a rich, productive soil having self-sustaining fertility.
How Biochar works
Finely-ground charcoal lends many balanced attributes to soil. Being highly adsorbent, charcoal holds water and nutrients and microorganisms within its cell structure. Its microporosity hosts, if you will, the soil ecology by storing nutrients and then sharing them with microorganisms and plant roots. As an aggregate, charcoal gives good body to the soil mix, making it solid yet lightweight, and not muddy, even in wet conditions. It is also rich and black and it makes beautiful soil. Plants thrive in it, so do worms.
How Biochar is made
Charcoal is made through pyrolysis. This is when woody material is subjected to high temperatures (same as fire) but while being deprived of oxygen. The less solid chemicals in the wood (called volatiles), which at high temperatures would normally mix with oxygen to make fire, are driven out of the cellular structure, leaving behind carbon and a small amount of ash.
Biochar is hard to make. It requires a great deal of energy to pyrolyze wood. At Renata, we are committed to sustainable biochar: local wood waste and no fossil fuels. We have developed a simple kiln which burns wood waste to pyrolyze wood waste. The kiln burns efficiently at very high temperatures and emits no smoke. It produces high quality biochar and requires no fossil fuel to run. The kiln operates silently and the fire inside burns beautifully, a sight to behold for sure.
Why you should care
Biochar is a wonderful opportunity for all of us. It will be meaningful to us in our backyards and, soon, on a global scale. It's sustainable production and use completes a circle that feeds our planet's soil, ecosystems, and people.
Biochar also sequesters carbon, making it a significant tool in our work to offset global warming. Trees and plants, as they grow and photosynthesize, pull carbon from the atmosphere and use it to build their organic structures. On a daily basis, we use massive volumes of plant matter, mainly in agriculture and lumber, and produce a steady stream of waste biomass. Through pyrolysis, this leftover wood waste can be sustainably converted to biochar, which stores carbon, little by little, back into the earth where it came from in the form of fossil fuels. Carbon stored in soils is recalcitrant, meaning it doesn't break down in the soil's metabolism--it is durable for a thousand years or more. A resource like this could bring down atmospheric C levels closer to 350 ppm, a significant threshold identified by the scientific community. This is also why it doesn't make sense to burn gas to make biochar!
Learn More
For articles and in-depth information check out our blog or visit the links on the right. Come attend a local Biochar event or reach out to Sprout to schedule an information session or demonstration. And don't forget to spread the message of Biochar and sustainable soil practices!