The French startup NetZero, which specializes in long-term carbon capture thanks to biochar, a charcoal based on vegetable waste, inaugurated this Thursday in Brazil one of the largest production centers in the world.
The center, built in six months, is located in Lajinha, in the state of Minas Gerais, and is the first of its kind in South America.
The company will transform every year 16,000 tons of waste from coffee farming into this coal, also known as biochar, which has numerous advantages in terms of fighting climate change and maintaining farmland.
Ten thousand planters from the local cooperative Coocafé will contribute their agricultural waste, which will be transformed into biochar by burning at a very high temperature.
The process is known as pyrolysis and makes it possible to extract the carbon stored by plants throughout their life, and keep it captured so that it does not return to the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.
The biochar generated in this way, abl to retain both water and nutrients on the ground and reduce the use of fertilizers, will be buried in the coffee fields of these Brazilian planters, Axel Reinaud, founder of the NetZero company, told AFP.
The plant’s annual production capacity will exceed 4,500 tons of biochar, which will allow it to store nearly 6,500 tons of CO2 equivalent.
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According to Reinaud, it will be “the largest factory in the world producing biochar from agricultural waste”.
Currently there are already other important factories in North America, but there the biochar is generated from forest waste.
The French company said it plans to build two more factories in Brazil by the end of the year.
Founded in 2021, this startup has specialized in the production of biochar in tropical areas, where biomass is abundant, cheap and often underutilized.
The company erected the first charcoal factory in Cameroon in late 2021, and has set a goal of storing twomillion tons of C02 per year by 2030.