Microwave factory to act as carbon sink

I generally approach these kinds of stories, having read the headline, with a degree of skepticism: if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is too good to be true. However this does actually sound like a worthwhile plan, and what's more it's in the New Scientist, so not flaky. Microwave factory to act as carbon sink - earth - 01 October 2008 - New Scientist Environment: "Carbonscape, based in Blenheim, New Zealand, has developed technology that turns organic waste, such as wood and wood chips, into charcoal using microwaves. Turney, who advises Carbonscape, says that at full capacity the plant can produce a tonne of charcoal a day. And even when the plant is using electricity generated by conventional non-renewable sources, the process will result in a net reduction of one tonne of CO2 in the atmosphere every day,"
The comments at the bottom are worth checking out. One of them points out that we'd need 27 million of these plants to offset current conversion of fossil carbon into gas. But it could help and if there were decentralised and preferably renewably powered solutions (partly financed from carbon offsets?) it could be more significant.

And the potential value doesn't end there, because charcoal is a good thing if used wisely: "Nearly 500 years ago, tribes in the Amazon used to smoulder their domestic waste, and the resultant charcoal was mixed into the soil. In places in the Amazon, this terra preta, or black earth, is nearly half a metre thick. Charcoal makes the soil more fertile by binding nutrients to itself and making them available for plants, and is extremely resistant to breakdown. "You do quite often get a very significant boost in soil fertility and water holding capacity," says Michael Bird at the University of St Andrews, UK." I've written about terra preta elsewhere on this blog (look it up in the search box)...