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USBI Conference 2012
Initiative News
April 5, 2026
Webinar: Emissions & Sequestration Study Results, Now Available Online.
We are making our recent Webinar: Emissions & Sequestration Study Results, available online. If you were unable to attend the live webinar, you can watch a recording on Sonoma Ecology Center’s YouTube channel here. The presenters have also kindly made their presentation slides available, which can be found here. If you have any questions about this study […]
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Initiative News
April 5, 2026
Bi-Weekly Biochar Review
Bi-Weekly Biochar Review — April 5, 2026 The biochar carbon removal market closed Q1 2026 with record activity, as March saw a surge in biochar offtake agreements, credit issuance, and retirements according to new data from Carbon Pulse. A climate registry director announced at the North American Carbon World conference that an updated biochar protocol […]
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Initiative News
March 22, 2026
Biochar’s Amazing and Other Songs About Black Gold
Calling all Biochar Nerds! I recently got the wild idea that maybe we could use music to help spread the word about biochar and environmental sustainability. Experimenting with Anthropic’s Claude to help with lyrics and a music generator to help produce each song based on the genre and feel I wanted for each, the following […]
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Initiative News
February 22, 2026
Conversation With AI on Biochar
Q & A with Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet 4.6 on Biochar 2/22/26 and 3/7/26 By Raymond Baltar I recently read what I consider to be an important essay on the current state of AI titled “Something Big is Happening” by an industry insider named Matt Schumer. While this is somewhat of an obvious statement to anyone who has […]
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Initiative News
February 20, 2026
Webinar to Present FInal Results: Emissions Testing for Flame-Cap Kilns & Conservation Burns Vs Standard Open Burn Piles
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Initiative News
November 28, 2025
News and Links
As many of you know who have followed our almost 5-year pyrolysis system saga we received our Authority to Construct permit in February of 2025, and we installed, commissioned, and ran the system successfully for 2 months. During this period we conducted extensive emissions testing, and because of a clerical error by the testing company […]
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Biochar General
November 6, 2025
Green Schoolyards Implementation Project
In 2023 the Sonoma Ecology Center was awarded a CAL FIRE-funded grant to develop plans for landscape greening upgrades at all 8 elementary schools in the Pittsburg Unified School District as well as for the 4 elementary schools in the Bellevue USD in Santa Rosa. These plans included shade tree planting, outdoor classrooms, bioswales, and […]
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Initiative News
May 17, 2025
SEC and Napa Recycling Pyrolysis System Startup: Upcycling Surplus Urban Woodchips
On March 23, Sonoma Ecology Center, in collaboration with Napa Recycling and Waste, A Plus Tree, and Advanced Renewable Technologies started up their long-awaited biochar production facility in American Canyon. Funded by CAL FIRE as part of California’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, it has taken a 4- year journey through the Covid 19 pandemic, numerous […]
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Initiative News
April 18, 2025
Bay Area Pyrolysis System Opening Day
The Sonoma Ecology Center, in collaboration with Napa Recycling, A Plus Tree, and Advanced Renewable Technologies International (ARTi), are holding an Open House and tour of the newly installed biochar production demonstration project at the Napa Recycling and Compost Facility. This event, open to the public, is on Saturday May 3rd from 10:30 to 12:30 at […]
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Initiative News
March 6, 2025
2024 Highlights
2024 was another busy year for the biochar program at Sonoma Ecology Center. Here are a few highlights: We successfully navigated an EPA process to change the way clean cellulosic biomass is viewed by the EPA and the BAAQMD for use in pyrolysis systems. Instead of categorizing clean cellulosic biomass as MSW when used in […]
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