The Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy at the University of Utah announced that Applied Carbon is the winner of the $500,000 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize. Applied Carbon, formerly known as Climate Robotics, has developed a mobile, in-field solution that picks up crop waste left after harvesting and converts it into carbon-rich biochar in a single pass. The resulting product is deposited back onto the field, simultaneously increasing soil health, improving crop yields, reducing fertilizer needs, and providing a carbon removal and storage solution that lasts millions of years.

The 2024 Wilkes Climate Launch Prize is one of the largest university-affiliate climate awards in the world and is geared to spur innovation and breakthroughs from organizations at all stages, both for-profits and nonprofits—anywhere in the world—to help fund and accelerate solutions to climate change.

“People talk about the ‘missing middle’ of funding in climate tech. For early-stage research, you use government grants to prove the science. Once you have a working design, you might get VC money. But when it comes to building your first few prototypes, investors can’t take the risk,” said Jason Aramburu, CEO and co-founder Applied Carbon. “Programs like the Wilkes Climate Launch Prize are really important to fill a crucial funding gap.”

William Anderegg, director of the Wilkes Center, awarded the prize to Aramburu during an evening reception held in partnership with the Southwest Sustainability Innovation Engine (SWISIE), a multi-institutional enterprise in which the U and collaborators confront climate challenges facing the desert Southwest and spur economic development in the region.In May, seven finalists presented their ideas at the Wilkes Climate Summit at the U. A team of expert judges evaluated the projects for feasibility, scalable impact and potential for co-benefits to communities, economies or ecosystems.

“Applied Carbon’s bold climate solution addresses a major opportunity for agriculture to contribute to removing carbon from the atmosphere, benefiting farmers and soil health at the same time,” said William Anderegg. “It’s exactly the type of scalable and impactful solution that the Wilkes Climate Launch Prize seeks to supercharge.”

Going scorched-Earth

For thousands of years, Indigenous people burned crop waste and tilled it back into the soil, a method that neutralizes acidity, boosts nutrient retention, improves water drainage and supports beneficial microbes. To this day, ancient biochar persists in Central and South American soils and continues to benefit local agriculture.

After a harvest in the U.S., most large-scale agricultural operations either leave the leftover plant waste atop their fields or till it into the soil. Microbes break down the organic matter and produce CO₂ and other greenhouse gasses as a byproduct. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that each year, food loss and crop waste produces 170 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, equal to the annual CO₂ emissions of 42 coal-fired powerplants. When produced correctly, biochar persists in the soil for millions of years, trapping carbon in a stable, nutrient-rich substance.

Aramburu first learned about biochar in Panama, while conducting tropical ecology research as an undergraduate.

“Since I was a kid people have been saying that we need to phase out fossil fuels. But we’ve just used exponentially more. I’ve always thought it would be critical to have technology that removes CO₂ from the air.” Aramburu said. “Biochar made a lot of intuitive sense to me—there’s so much biomass out there that’s just waste. And you’re spending money on fertilizer and water to produce the waste that you end up just burning.”

For the last 20 years, Aramburu has seen the biochar sector grow from the realm of dedicated hobbyists to one of the largest segments of the carbon removal market. However, scalability has been an issue. There are 60 biomass energy plants in the U.S. that work by burning wood to make electricity, producing biochar as an afterthought. Not only are these operations energy-intensive, but they require massive infrastructure to transport the product from the plant to the fields, spewing even more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

Aramburu and Applied Carbon COO and co-founder Morgan Williams dreamed of a better system that could pick up crop waste and produce and distribute biochar in one pass. Now, they’ve developed an agricultural robot called a pyrolizer that does it all in-field, in one pass. Here’s how it works. The machine picks up field residues such as corn, rice and cotton, chops it up and blows it into a processor that prepares the material for the reactor. The reactor heats the biomass to 1,000ºF in a limited-oxygen environment creating biochar and syngas, a gaseous substance. A fraction of the syngas burns to generate the heat to sustain the pyrolysis reaction. The excess syngas moves through a cyclone to remove fine particles, then enters a thermal oxidizer to destroy exhaust, until it releases as clean heat. The resulting biochar is drenched with water and spread onto the field with minimal soil disturbance.

Aramburu said that the Climate Launch Prize came at the perfect time.

“The prize is quite catalytic to us right now. We don’t have a line of credit yet from a big manufacturer, so we are self-funding the pyrolizer units. This prize will directly allow us to build out a fleet,” said Aramburu. “It’s really important that we built more units to show future lenders and financiers that the technology works, and that its scalable.”

• Lisa Potter Research communications specialist, University of Utah Communications
  949-533-7899 lisa.potter@utah.edu
• Ross Chambless Community Engagement Manager, Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy
  (801) 646-6067 ross.chambless@utah.edu