Mantria Corporation commits to helping to mitigate global warming through the use of their Carbon Fields, where Mantria will perform trials to prove how biochar, a carbon rich soil amendment, can sequester green house gases from the atmosphere. This socially responsible program will provide solutions for the environment and future, enhancing both soil fertility as well as offsetting carbon emissions.
Phase 1: Carbon Fields, Tennessee
- At the Carbon Fields in Tennessee, Mantria will produce biomass crops that are used to produce bioenergy, biofuel, and biochar. The Carbon Fields are 1-3 acre grids within Mantria's Ecovillage development, which will be used to obtain carbon credits.
- Switchgrass and other fast-growing crops will be planted on each grid, using biochar as a soil amendment to enhance the growth, and the subsequent carbon offsets will be sold.
- These crops will then be used as biomass that is turned into bioenergy, biofuel and the same biochar that will be used to grow more crops.
- Closing the loop, the bioenergy and biofuel will then be used to run the system. Essentially, the system will recycle its own energy and power after the first run, demonstrating a reduction in waste as well as cost.
Phase 2: Implementation in West Africa
- After holding an intial meeting in Tennessee, the Mantria executives will meet with the Ambassador of the Ivory Coast in October 2009, with the hope that Mantria will bring the technology to this and other West African nations as early as December 2009.
- Once all plans are approved, Mantria will provide decentralized waste management while producing biochar products that can be used for cooking and heating as well as for agriculture
Energy-intensive economies, as well as individual lifestyles, have created an alarming awareness that the environment is being negatively effected by our carbon footprints. Mantria has found that this footprint can be greatly reduced by naturally removing carbon from the atmosphere and turning it into a useful agricultural product called biochar.
Biochar is a fine-grain charcoal, rich in carbon, and produced from biomass waste that can be used as a soil amendment that enhances the ability of soil to retain nutrients and water, increasing the availability of nutrients for plant growth, and as a fertilizer enhancer. Biochar requires less fertilizer per acre than typical fertizlizers and lowers the negative impact that crops have on the environment by reducing nitrous oxide emissions, phorpshorus runoff, and nitrogen leaching, thus reducing the impact on surface and ground water.
The distinctive process that Mantria uses to create the biochar is a highly innovative system of advanced pyrolysis and gasification technology, which also coproduces renewable oils and gases that can be turned into fuel and electricity.
Introducing biochar in developing countries helps to mitigate climate change and puts these countries on a path of sustainable development by providing access to charcoal produced through Mantria's modern, efficient and clean energy technology, which also sequesters carbon and reduces pressures for deforestation and destruction of biodiversity.
More information on Mantria's EnternaGreen biochar can be found at: www.eternagreen.com/biochar.
