Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

Pyrolysis: Creating Carbon Negative Energy

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

Lead students to where the jobs will be with this new/old, yet simple technology. It creates carbon negative energy while harvesting carbon from biomass feedstocks. This carbon, biochar, is useful in agriculture, water treatment, and other applications. Applications of pyrolysis include creating carbon negative home heating systems that harvest carbon for constructive uses, as well as, for example, clean burning stoves that reduced health risks created by traditional three stone stoves. The biochar produced by these pyrolytic stoves will provide farmers with a beneficial soil amendment. Jock Gill is a leader in creating simple and low cost units for introducing students to pyrolysis and its two principal co-products: Thermal energy & biochar.