Was at Rockstarts Forward 2025 in Copenhagen, focused on biochar.
Interesting to meet more people involved in the scene, and hear the ambitious startups telling about what they already have achieved and want to achieve.
Most inspiring was Henrik Stiesdal, introduced as “the godfather of wind power” who shared his vision for biochar in Europe’s climate strategy, and what he works on now.
Amongst other he talked about that 75 million tons (75.000.000 tons) CO2 has now been decided needs to be removed from the atmosphere in the EU by 2040.
He put this in perspective: is this feasable with Biochar? This requeires about 100 million tons of feedstock in the EU – very reasonable, this exists.
But in order to meet 75.000.000 tons CO2, biochar production needs to grow by 50% year on year. 750x increase from todays level, by 2040! This is not realistic. With his background in wind energy he also drew parells to the growth and expansion of wind. Wind scaled 25-28% yer on year between 1995 – 2010 (15 years, so same time frame as 2025-2040). His estimate: 30% is max growth for industries that are ”hardware” related.
Wind was created by demand and established long term frame conditions. This is not in place (yet) for biochar. We need that was his main message.
Inspiring to hear others talk about this issue and the numbers involved. And also made me even more commited to what I want to do with Carbon Collective.