Our Mission

Our Vision

• Demonstrate and develop biomass gasification as a viable replacement for fossil fuel combustion in agricultural practices
  
• Improve the economic situation of rice farming communities
  
• Establish a system by which the char created in the gasification process is used to create biochar and improve local soil quality
  
• Create a system of carbon sequestration and verification
  
• Use this verified carbon sequestration as the basis for a market mechanism to balance carbon emissions with carbon sequestration

Carbon Neutral Commons is promoting a change in world energy management by replacing fossil fuel combustion with gasification of agricultural residues. The process of gasification avoids most of the carbon and methane emissions of combustion, and creates char as a useful byproduct. This char can be used as biochar, simultaneously sequestering carbon and improving soil productivity. The energy produced by gasification can be used for household and industrial purposes.

This process is one part of a methodology for Biological Carbon Capture and Storage (BCCS). Picture it as an equation: it begins with accounting for the carbon we bring into the short-term carbon cycle by burning fossil fuels. By measuring the amount of carbon sequestered in biochar, we can account for removing an equivalent amount of carbon from the short term carbon cycle. By accurately measuring and certifying the rate at which carbon is added and removed, in a real-life process, we can show the cost of balancing the atmospheric concentration of carbon through gasification & biochar.

This creates a basis with which a dollar value could be applied to both sides of the equation,  developing a market-based mechanism for nations, companies and individuals to “clean up” their carbon emissions. In our vision the farmers supplying the biomass used for carbon sequestration will sequester the biochar in the same soil crops grow from. They will “export” a certificate indicating to the purchaser the number of atoms of carbon they have sequestered. To guarantee quality and transparency of the system, there will be rigorous third-party testing and monitoring. Given the necessary and sufficient conditions, sequestered carbon or "Carbon Negative Negative" could have its own commodity market.  

This is a massive undertaking with a global vision; clean air is an international public good. The governance challenges that must be overcome to implement this effort with a reasonable chance of success are unprecedented in the history of human affairs. By showing how the method could be implemented, we hope to encourage the possibility of this market-based solution to the problem of private overuse of this public good.