Proposal for Biochar Centre

A Community Biochar Centre is proposed for Macclesfield that will convert dry woody biomass (eg: tree litter, off-cuts etc.) from local households, landowners and businesses to biochar and thereby capture carbon, offset and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create voluntary carbon offsets to trade.

Biochar is a form of charcoal and is good for the soil, good as an animal feed supplement, has numerous industrial uses and combats climate change by sequestering carbon.

A proposal has been drafted that summarises the objectives, benefits and costs associated with a local biochar centre in Macclesfield. The proposal provides the detailed calculations used to justify the claims made, and also provides examples of the agreements needed, the methods to be used to minimise risk, and other relevant factors. The draft proposal can be viewed on the draft website at https://maccybiochar.wixsite.com/mysite/blog.

Registered suppliers of woody material would receive a regular statement detailing the weight of carbon that they have sequestered and what that represents in terms of greenhouse gases averted and number of kilowatthours of electricity consumption offset.

A location for the Centre will be sought following Council’s in-principle support for the project.

Local households will not be charged for processing their woody material.

Local businesses and landowners will have the convenience of a local facility to process their woody material for a modest fee.

The Community will potentially benefit from such a Centre by having a new business, with the potential for local employment and associated services such as a local pick-up service for registered users; local processing and packaging of biochar for special uses (eg biochar-based fertilizer; animal feed supplements; activated carbon for water filters and air filters; colouring agent; cosmetics, etc); improved soils and therefore more productive farms and gardens.

The Centre is also likely to attract a great deal of outside interest as an example of what a small community can do to combat climate change. Guided tours of the Centre will be offered to schools and various other groups, all of which will contribute to increased commercial activity in the town.

A public meeting was held on 22 January 2019 to discuss the proposal which was well attended, and included the Mayor of Mount Barker, Ann Ferguson and the Federal Member for Mayo, Rebekha Sharkie, resulting in the formation of a Steering Committee to take the matter further.

The Steering Committee is now preparing a submission to Council and seeks your support as part of this submission.

For further information please call either of the following:

Brian Lewis: Mob: 041 148 0935.

Kelvin Williams: Mob: 0423 198 345.

Kath Thurmer: Mob: 0405 912 602.

The draft website at https://maccybiochar.wixsite.com/mysite also provides more information on how the Community and the Centre will interact.

Please send your letter of support to:

Brian Lewis

Chair

Steering Committee

Macclesfield Community Biochar Centre

PO Box 535

Macclesfield SA 5153

Or send an email to:

maccybiochar@adam.com.au

Thank you in advance for supporting this new Macclesfield initiative.

Brian Lewis

Steering Committee

22 Feb. 2019


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