Good article about biochar

Biochar has been touted as one way to sequester carbon. The following article explains how it works and what it can do. I didn't know that fuel is one output of the process.

Biochar: running the numbers

A couple of parts of this:

Plant waste is heated to temperatures of several hundred Celsius in a pyroliser, a vessel from which oxygen is excluded; so it does not burn. Instead, gases and liquids are driven off, which can potentially be used as fuel or agricultural treatments. The remainder turns into a dry, carbon-rich solid similar to charcoal. Scattered on fields, biochar helps raise crop yields; and the carbon it contains is locked away for thousands of years. As that carbon had been absorbed from the atmosphere as the plants grew, what we have is a net removal of carbon from the atmosphere and storage in soil.

and

Research at Edinburgh and elsewhere has shown that the carbon economics of biochar can stack up rather well. In contrast to burning, about half of the carbon in the waste is captured and stored; meanwhile, the liquids and gases yield easily enough energy to power the pyroliser, with some left over for other uses around the farm.

Another arrow in the quiver, maybe.