Manmade biomass coal offers storage and fuel
Manmade coal produced by Carbonscape's Black Phantom machine.
(Credit: Carbonscape)A new machine dubbed the "Black Phantom" can turn biomass into manmade coal.
Carbonscape, a New Zealand-based start-up, describes its invention as an industrial-sized microwave that can cook plant waste, wood waste, and "even sewage" into coal.
Carbonscape also claims that the machine captures and stores more carbon than the amount of carbon generated by the electricity needed to power it for the process.
Why would anyone want to make more coal when humans are desperately trying to get out from under the carbon dioxide mess we've been making since the Industrial Revolution?
The invention combines two popular environmental efforts: using biochar for carbon capture and storage (CCS), and developing alternative fuel sources from biomass.
While there are issues to be worked out on carbon capture and storage (CSS), it's seen by energy utilities and governments as a possible tool in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Biochar is coal made from biomass that can be buried in soil as a carbon sink or for use in farming, rather than letting decaying plants release carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
Biomass--agricultural and wood byproducts that can be used to make ethanol, or electricity directly--is considered by the EU, the U.S. and others as a possible answer to reducing oil dependence while providing a cleaner and more efficient way to produce and consume energy.
As reported by the Financial Times, Carbonscape's machine turns biomass into a kind of biochar to be stored underground.
Though it's unclear just how clean it would burn, Carbonscape's biochar can also be burned as fuel.
Whether or not the invention is scalable remains to be seen, but judging from who is involved Carbonscape's claims seem legit.
The company's board includes Nick Gerritsen, the director of Aquaflow Bionomic, one of the companies developing algae biodiesel; and Tim Flannery, former Harvard University professor and environmental activist known for his books "The Future Eaters" and "The Weather Makers."
In a software-driven world, it's easy to forget about the nuts and bolts. Whether it's cars, robots, personal gadgetry or industrial machines, Candace Lombardi examines the moving parts that keep our world rotating. A journalist who divides her time between the United States and the United Kingdom, Lombardi has written about technology for the sites of The New York Times, CNET, USA Today, MSN, ZDNet, Silicon.com, and GameSpot. E-mail her at candacelombardi@gmail.com. She is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. 
The best technology out there is the gasifier. It creates fuel and biochar at the same time. You can also run electric generators with gasifiers to produce electricity.
There is a tremendous use for biochar to trap carbon forever. You will have to plow biochar back into the ground and mix it, and through time you will form Terra Pretta or Amazon Dark Soil. Biochar is an excellent soil amendment that can tremendously improve fertilizer use efficiency and water use efficiency. It minimizes leaching and holds more nutrients and water and will host beneficial microorganisms. When trapped in the soil, carbon stays there forever, effectively removing carbon from the atmosphere, never to be recycled back. Compared to peat moss, compost and other soil amendments, those ultimately disintegrates and turn back into carbon dioxide where it goes back to the atmosphere. But with biochar, the carbon will be trapped in the soil forever. Such simple technological use of biochar has been used by the Amazonians more than 5,000 years ago, and today, those same soil that they have plowed biochar into are the most productive.