This biochar stove heats a Palomas home through the cold of winter while producing a soil-enriching component.
We’ve started a special fund to target the expansion of our biochar stoves. A Go-Fund-Me campaign will support the construction of 25 additional biochar producing stoves in the community of Puerto Palomas.
These amazing little furnaces can do multiple things:
- help to heat the homes of 38 low-income families;
- provide a community with expanded access to healthy, fresh produce
- mitigate the effects of climate change by sequestering at least 140 tons of atmospheric carbon in the first year of operation
- Save the burning of over 15,000 pounds of propane that would be used each year heating those 38 homes
Biochar Uses
The biochar that the stoves produce is a charcoal substance that’s an ancient natural soil amendment. It can be made from any number of agricultural products. But we choose to burn pecan shells because they’re available in abundance in this region. And, the shells would otherwise go to waste.
After the stoves produce biochar, it’s composted with cow manure. Then we can add it to soil in community gardens and farms.
Every $800.00 raised in this GoFundMe fundraiser will cover the costs to build and operate a biochar stove. At the same time it will heat the home of a needy family in Palomas at no cost to them. The biochar the stoves produce increase crop yields in our community gardens and farms by up to 35%.
Biochar Project Impact: An Overview
Expanding our biochar project to build 25 more stoves that heat homes and produce biochar will have the following impacts in each of Border Partners priority action areas.
Health & Wellbeing: Biochar produced by our stoves will permanently sequester over 1,000 tons of carbon from the atmosphere over 10 years, contributing to lower local pollution levels and mitigating the effects of climate change. In our high desert climate the temperature drops into the 30’s every night and can go below freezing during the five month heating season.
Economic Growth: Used as a soil amendment, the 280 tons of Biochar produced by our 38 stoves in the stove’s 10 year estimated useful life has potential to increase crop yields of local farms by up to 35%, providing an additional source of income. The money saved by families on heating means they have more to spend on food and other necessities.
Sustainable Technology: This project will provide sources of no-cost, energy-saving, carbon neutral technology and work hand-in-hand with locals to ensure effective, long-term success over the next 10 years.
Education: People in the community and beyond can learn about biochar from educational resources about this project freely available online.
This regenerative, sustainable energy source will heat homes, help feed a community, and sequester carbon contributing to climate change mitigation on a global scale.
Please partner with us to expand this project and extend resources for a climate-friendly, sustainable future for all, one ton of Biochar at a time!