In 2024 and 2025, SBI concluded a two-phase, CAL FIRE-funded grant project measuring and comparing emissions produced by the Ring of Fire Kiln (produced by Wilson Biochar), the conservation burn pile technique, and the standard burn pile technique. This work was conducted in partnership with the San Luis Obispo APCD, the USFS Fire Science Lab, The Usal Redwood Forest Company, LCA researcher Jim Amonette from Washington State University, and SEC's restoration program led by Cuauhtemoc Villa.

Final results are being released in a webinar scheduled for mid-March 2026. This data is critical for fire managers, air quality regulators, and biochar producers seeking to understand the relative environmental footprints of different burn management strategies.

After a four-year permitting journey with BAAQMD, SBI received both an Authority to Construct permit and, in November 2025, the final Permit to Operate for our containerized ARTi pyrolysis unit at the Napa Recycling and Compost Facility in American Canyon. A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held in April 2025.

Alongside our partners at Sitos, the US Biochar Coalition, and others, SBI helped change a USEPA determination that had categorized clean cellulosic biomass (wood chips from urban tree care companies, untreated pallets) as municipal solid waste requiring extensive and expensive monitoring. Under the new determination, this material can be considered a commercially acceptable input for biochar and energy production — a significant win for the emerging community-scale biochar industry.

SBI also received an award from the Joint Institute for Wood Products Innovation to monitor all operations related to the ARTi unit, helping determine the long-term viability of this type of community-scale pyrolysis system for replication across California.

In 2024, SBI received a CAL FIRE grant to manage planning for greening additions to 12 elementary schools — 4 in Santa Rosa and 8 in Pittsburg (SF East Bay Area). Working with architects, landscape architects, and school communities, SBI developed plans that include planting shade trees, building outdoor classrooms, removing asphalt, building bioswales, and integrating biochar into all soil treatments.

In 2025, SBI was awarded implementation funding for Stoneman Elementary in Pittsburg. Construction completed in December 2025 and environmental education programming for 2nd–5th graders began in February 2026. All projects include a curriculum element where SEC staff provide environmental education to every class.

SBI is contributing to a Sonoma County effort to assess biomass flows in the county and the viability of establishing a biomass campus and mill to better utilize lower-value, unmerchantable forest materials. Spearheaded by Temra Costa and Jeremy Fisher of Regenerative Forest Solutions and funded by the California Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, this group is currently working to acquire the idled Berry's Sawmill near Cazadero, California.

Thanks to the continued monitoring by partners Josiah Hunt of Pacific Biochar and the Monterey Pacific vineyard management company, the Oasis Vineyard field trial — originally funded by the CA Department of Water Resources — is still recording positive results after the 6th harvest. This long-running trial has become one of the most robust biochar-in-viticulture datasets on the West Coast and continues to provide valuable data for the biochar research community.

In 2020, SBI produced a two-day educational webinar series called the Scaling Biochar Forum — focused on what is needed to scale the developing biochar industry, featuring 27 speakers from across the country representing science, industry, entrepreneurial, and policy perspectives. All 20–30 minute presentations are available on the scalingbiochar.com website. Share them widely.

The Sonoma Biochar Initiative (SBI) is a project of the Sonoma Ecology Center (SEC). We are dedicated to promoting biochar education and its sustainable production and use throughout California. We collaborate with strategic partners to educate local farmers, foresters, vineyard managers, government officials, and other stakeholders on the advantages of producing biochar to better utilize surplus materials from our forests, reduce fire hazards, improve community resiliency, and enhance agricultural productivity while reducing GHG emissions.

SBI views accelerated use of biochar as key to soil restoration, as a watershed management tool, as a means to reduce mined industrial inputs like construction aggregates, sand, and coal-based activated carbon, and as a "fast mitigation technology" increasingly cited in international climate talks. Through grant funding, SBI has established or contributed to several local and state demonstration projects for biochar production and application.

"Biochar production and use is booming — recognized by the IPCC, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and ClimateWorks as one of the four least expensive and most scalable natural solutions for drawing down carbon from the atmosphere."

Biochar has been recognized by the IPCC, Lawrence Livermore National Labs, and ClimateWorks as one of the 4 least expensive and most scalable natural solutions for drawing down carbon. It was profiled in Leonardo DiCaprio's documentary Ice on Fire, and CAL FIRE, the US Forest Service, NRCS, USDA, California's DWR, and CDFA have all provided grant funding for biochar-related projects in recent years.

Biochar is a specialized form of charcoal produced by heating biomass at high temperatures (typically 350°C to 1,000°C) in low-oxygen environments, in a process called pyrolysis or gasification. Unlike charcoal used for grilling, biochar is produced specifically for use in agriculture and soil management.

When biomass is converted to biochar and added to soils, the carbon it contains is transformed into a very stable form that microorganisms cannot use as a food source — so it degrades extremely slowly. This makes biochar a form of carbon sequestration that can be implemented by anyone from a backyard vegetable gardener to the largest farm in California's Central Valley.

Biochar is placed into the soil by farmers — in fields, orchards, vineyards. The best time to apply it is with new plantings, but no-till nutrient application techniques allow addition to existing plantings as well. Field tests have consistently shown that the worse the soil's characteristics when biochar is added, the more positive the impact on crop yields.

Biochar is not a single type of material, but rather a broad category of carbonized biomass. Different feedstocks, temperatures, and processes produce materials with different properties. Woody feedstocks with high lignin content typically produce the most biochar by volume. Lower-temperature biochars from materials like manures and grasses can possess unique agronomic properties, and research continues into matching specific biochars to specific soils and crops.

When trees and crop residue decompose or burn, their carbon returns to the atmosphere within years. Converting that same material to biochar and incorporating it into soil moves that carbon onto a geological timescale — centuries to millennia. Biochar production and use prevents a large percentage of the CO₂ contained in the feedstock from returning to the atmosphere.

The IPCC, Project Drawdown, the Nature Conservancy, the US Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Lawrence Livermore National Lab have all identified biochar as one of the most important "natural climate solutions" available. Project Drawdown estimates that widespread adoption of biochar could reduce global emissions by 1.3 to 3 billion tonnes of CO₂e annually by 2050 — and this could be increased substantially further if biochar is used to partially displace industrial materials like construction aggregates and filtration media.

SBI strongly believes that biochar should be made only from sustainably managed sources — critical from both an environmental and business perspective. When sourcing biomass from forest environments, great care must be taken to preserve and minimize damage to forest ecosystems. There is more than enough misdirected and poorly managed biomass to provide material for a healthy, sustainable biochar industry in the coming decades.

We also understand that biochar production is a regional activity — hauling biomass over long distances is not viable economically or environmentally. We support construction of regionally-located biomass-to-biochar conversion centers organized by "carbonsheds" that match appropriate feedstock sources to technology sizes based on site-specific conditions.

We are looking for people to join us who are passionate about making positive impacts in our world, who love collaborating and learning about how to make a difference on some of the most pressing issues of our day, and who want to help spread the word about biochar and its many positive attributes. We are action-oriented and want to spend our time doing, not just talking.

To become a member: mail a check made out to Sonoma Ecology Center to P.O. Box 1486, Eldridge, CA 95431. Please write "SBI" in the notes, and include your name, organization (if applicable), mailing address, email, phone, website (if you'd like a link), and membership category. Students please include a copy of your current student ID; seniors are age 65 and above.