French eco-firm has chance to win €50 million prize from Elon Musk
NetZero is one of 20 global firms competing for a major environmental award for transforming agricultural waste into biochar
Biochar is a sustainably-produced charcoal from agricultural waste products
Matthew Bentley / Alamy
A French firm that turns agricultural waste into ‘biochar’ is among 20 firms selected globally for the final of a competition funded by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.
It puts the company, called NetZero, in the running for a €50 million prize.
XPrize Carbon Removal was set up to encourage ways to fight climate change and rebalance Earth's carbon cycle. It is due to be awarded in 2025 to a firm that can show its ideas work on a large scale.
NetZero has already won €1 million from the prize fund in 2022, when it was selected from 1,500 entries in the first round.
Its biochar is made by heating agricultural waste, which would otherwise be burnt, in an oxygen-poor environment to make charcoal.
This is then redistributed to farmers as a soil conditioner, helping to retain moisture and improve its capacity to absorb carbon dioxide (CO2). Studies have shown that a tonne of biochar can help soil absorb between 1.5 tonnes and two tonnes of CO2.
Read more: ‘Climate change should interest more people than it does’
Carbon credits
To fund its factories, NetZero trades ‘carbon credits’. Companies who need to reduce their carbon footprint for tax reasons buy credits at around €150 and €200 per tonne of carbon.
This is around three times the market price, but firms sign up because the system has proved to be reliable in a carbon market where fraud and scams have caused numerous scandals.
NetZero opened its first factory in Cameroon in 2022. It produces 1,500 tonnes of biochar a year from the shells of coffee beans which would otherwise be burnt. This year three factories are set to open next to coffee producers in Brazil.
