Waste coffee husks that come from North-South Synergy (SNS), Cameroon's largest coffee processing plant, will no longer be allowed to gradually decompose in a landfill. Instead, those tons of biomass are now being transported to a nearby facility, where they’re transformed into a wonder material that could be key to mitigating climate change. It’s called biochar, and its myriad of climate benefits—improving soil fertility, producing green energy, reducing waste, and most importantly, sequestering carbon from the atmosphere—have led many scientists to describe it as the most advanced and advanced method of CO2 removal we have today. “It has all these side benefits,” says Axel Reinaud, the company’s founder and CEO. NetZero , which operates the facility. “They really complement each other and it’s interdependent… . In terms of carbon removal, this will be the first solution to achieve scale.” Biochar production is an ancient agricultural practice that dates back thousands of years to fertile soil Terra Preta in Brazil. It is a type of black powder that is produced by heating organic matter, such as wood chips, manure, leaves or even coffee grounds, in the absence of oxygen (to prevent it from burning, which would release CO2) in a process known as pyrolysis. Biochar production removes CO2 from the atmosphere, turning the natural decomposition of organic matter into a carbon-negative process.

(Peter Yeung)