Photo via OBRIST.

Maintaining our planet’s forests is critical for mitigating climate change. Trees help soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), the heat-trapping greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

Deforestation undermines the important function forests play in reducing the amount of CO2 released through human activities like burning fossil fuels and from the natural processes of respiration and volcanic eruptions. According to NASA, deforestation produces 15% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions–more atmospheric CO2 than all the world’s cars and trucks combined.

Photo via World Wildlife Fund.

A few forward-thinking American and Austrian scientists, along with a naturalist, technical mathematician, and an emissions expert, believe that instead of thinking about what we can’t do, we should collectively think about what we can do about climate change.

Propelled by the US government’s decision to abandon the Clean Power Plan, the group has developed the OBRIST C-Transformer, a concept for a combination of machine technologies used to accelerate Mother Nature’s own reforestation process. The designers believe their concept will not only halt climate change but reverse it and restore our planet to its original health.

Here’s How it Works
Trees absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen by photosynthesis. During its lifetime, the tree stores carbon above and below the ground. When a tree dies, it releases that carbon into the atmosphere.

During their life spans, forests are carbon-neutral, binding and releasing approximately equal amounts of carbon. The OBRIST C-Transformer aims to revitalize our forests for the long term to reduce even more CO₂ from the atmosphere while at the same time providing a natural habitat for a diversity of animal species.

Photo via OBRIST.

Using pyrolysis, a charring process facilitated in a contained chamber, The OBRIST C-Transformer will turn dead tree trunks into biochar and introduce the resulting carbon combined with tree seeds into the forest ground to improve soil fertility, grow new trees, and prevent the further release of the carbon into the atmosphere.

The process transforms the wood into coal rather than CO2 and ashes to retain the majority of the carbon contained in the original tree. Although burning biomass outdoors would ordinarily release CO2 into the atmosphere, this concept does not burn the wood, but rather chars it in a contained environment, preventing greenhouse gas emission.

The OBRIST C-Transformer will run exclusively on renewable energy sources, wood gas and pyrolysis oil, the by-products of the pyrolysis process. “The gas obtained by pyrolysis will be used to maintain the pyrolysis process as well as the drying process,” Nickole Lewis, OBRIST International Project Manager explained to Urban Gardens. “The pyrolysis oil obtained from the liquid products generated through pyrolysis will be used for the additional processes related to movements and tool functions.”

The tentative goal is to have the OBRIST C-Transformer in production by 2025 with a total investment of one billion dollars. In the first phase, the project will examine the core processes of pyrolysis, storage potential, the process scopes and the required size of the machine. In the development phase, they plan to collaborate with scientists and universities worldwide.

To bring the concept to reality, the OBRIST C-Transformer founders aim to raise $500,000 in an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, while at the same time creating global awareness and interest to raise the balance of funds.

Part of the goal is to make the earth great again by offsetting carbon that will be released if Trump kills the EPA’s current Clean Power Plan.  A portion of the initial funds raised from crowdfunding will go to support the cultivation of The Trump Forest. The planned Trump Forest will cover an area of approximately 37,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers), about the size of the U.S. state of Kentucky, and will require the planting of 10 billion trees.

The OBRIST team has the concept and scientific proof. They know this will work. Now they need us to get involved and support this concept’s development. I have made a contribution to the Indiegogo campaign and encourage all Urban Gardens readers and followers to join me in this collective effort to help mitigate climate change.

You can read more about the OBRIST C-Transformer and make a contribution here.