Back in March, The Maldives announced its plan to become carbon neutral by 2020 through a combination of renewable energy projects and carbon credits. Now, the island nation has added another component to their carbon-cutting goal: coconuts.
Yes, coconuts. The country plans to use the shells along with other biowaste to produce biochar, which will be used as fertilizer instead of the inorganic type the country currently imports. Biochar is made by "slow cooking" the plant waste until it becomes a carbon-rich char that is mixed with soil and buried underground.
The company that is aiding the country with this endeavor, Carbon Gold, claims that this process serves as a kind of carbon sequestration - keeping the carbon created by the plant waste in the soil instead of being released into the atmosphere as it would be if the waste were just left to rot. Whether or not that turns out to be an effective way to keep carbon out of the atmosphere, the use of the biochar will at the very least cut back on the country's carbon emissions by eliminating the need to import fertilizer.
via BBC News
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written by Mr Falafel, September 05, 2009
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SEP 04
"Been around for a while, but this is actually a GREAT way to sequester..."
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