Willamette Valley, Oregon
Keeping Oregon’s Carbon in the Ground
Recalcitrant Carbon turns the valley’s hazelnut shells and clean forest residues into carbon-negative power, high-durability biochar, and rigorously validated removal credits. Every ton of biochar we make keeps carbon out of the atmosphere for centuries.
Carbon-negative power · High-durability biochar · Built for carbon registries
The valley makes more byproduct than it knows what to do with.
Oregon grows nearly all of America’s hazelnuts, and a decade of new orchards is only now coming into bearing. Western Oregon’s logging leaves a second stream behind, most of it piled and burned. Meanwhile the region’s power is getting scarcer and more expensive.
of hazelnut shells a year by 2028, up from about 60,000 today.
Oregon Hazelnut Commission, 2026 company estimate
of Oregon forest residue available each year. We take only clean, bark-free material.
of US hazelnuts are grown here in Oregon.
USDA
rise in Oregon residential power rates in five years, with regional demand forecast to grow 30%+ over the next decade.
Oregon’s shells could fuel more than ten reactors. We’re building the first.
Each reactor turns 10,000 dry tons of residue a year into roughly 2,500 tons of high-durability biochar, 6,250+ tons of verified CO₂ removal, and carbon-negative power. Clean forest residue could supply many more. We start on proven hardware and scale into our own design.
- 01
Feedstock in
Hazelnut shells and clean forest residue arrive from partners across the valley, solving their disposal problem at the source.
- 02
Pyrolysis
Biomass is heated without oxygen. The gases it releases fuel the process and drive heat-to-power recovery, so the carbon ends up in the char instead of the sky.
- 03
Three products out
High-durability biochar, rigorously validated removal credits, and carbon-negative power.
- Phase 1
Proven hardware
10,000 → 20,000 tons/yr feedstock
Two commercial pyrolysis reactors with heat-to-power recovery establish feedstock supply, registry validation, and buyer trust. We pilot our own reactor alongside them.
- Phase 2
Our reactor
40,000 tons/yr feedstock
Two full-scale reactors of our proprietary fuel-cell design join the Phase 1 units, turning the same residue into roughly six times the electricity.
- Phase 3
Full capture
40,000+ tons/yr feedstock
We capture CO₂ from the exhaust for permanent storage, add a second stream of removal credits, and license the design to new regions.
Electricity without a boiler.
Biomass power plants burn fuel to boil water, and the steam cycle holds them near 25% electrical efficiency. Biochar plants that recover heat for power manage about 10%. Our reactor design converts its gas to electricity in a fuel cell, electrochemically. There’s no boiler and no round-the-clock steam crew.
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Dial power versus carbon
Shift output toward electricity or biochar as markets move.
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Biochar keeps flowing
Carbon production continues when the power side is down for service.
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Automated by design
Built to run with weekly attention, not a 24/7 crew.
Electrical efficiency of the power step only. Our figure is modeled: fuel cell plus bottoming cycle.
Designed by a PhD in high-temperature ceramic fuel cells with eleven years of semiconductor process engineering at Intel.
Silicon-grade discipline, brought to carbon.
Low-quality char from an unreliable process is a problem for everyone involved: buyers can’t qualify it, registries can’t validate it, and partners can’t plan around it. We run pyrolysis the way a chip fab runs a production line, so every ton is consistent, documented, and delivered on schedule.
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Quality feedstocks, quality products
Good char starts with good ingredients: hazelnut shells, among the highest-quality biochar feedstocks studied, and forest residue that’s clean and bark-free. Scientific Reports, 2025 · Energies, 2021
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Strictly pyrolytic
Heated without oxygen to a controlled setpoint, not halted by judgment. The result is low-ash char built to qualify for agriculture, concrete, filtration, and battery markets.
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Reliable by design
Statistical process control, inline metrology, and automation keep output steady, so offtakers and credit buyers can count on volume as well as quality.
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Built for registries
Every batch is measured and documented to the standard registries and industrial buyers require, so every credit holds its value.
A market racing to buy what we make.
Buyers are locking up durable carbon removal years in advance. In the first half of 2026, biochar offtake volume more than doubled, and by July, 81% of high-quality biochar supply was already committed. One major buyer’s screening passed only 13 of more than 400 projects. The constraint is quality supply, not demand.
Supercritical market data, H1 2026, via Carbon Credits
- 10,000 t dry residue in
- 2,500 t high-durability biochar out
- 6,250+ t CO₂ removed
- Excess power carbon-negative, enough to run the plant
$1.3M+ annual revenue per reactor, before power
Our models value biochar and credits at the lower end of the market range. Removal per ton is a conservative lower bound.
Voluntary carbon-credit market, projected within ten years.
MSCI, 2026
Compliance carbon markets, projected within ten years.
GMI, 2025
Pyrolyzed carbon (biochar, activated and hard carbon), projected within ten years.
Fortune Business Insights; Mordor Intelligence; Dataintelo, 2025
Global electricity production, projected within ten years.
Fortune Business Insights, 2025
Carbon with many second lives.
One carbon-negative line yields three revenue streams, and the biochar goes on to work in a remarkable range of industries.
- High-durability biochar
- Validated removal credits
- Carbon-negative power
- Agricultural soil amendment
- Water & wastewater filtration
- Low-carbon concrete & steel
- Mine-runoff remediation
- Feedstock for activated carbon
- Hard carbon for sodium-ion batteries (in development)
Bulk uses like soil amendment stay local, because biochar is costly to ship by volume. That’s an advantage for a valley-based producer. Higher-value uses like activated and battery carbon travel farther and pay more.
The people behind it.
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Dr. Matthew West
President & Chief Technology Officer
PhD in Chemical Engineering, UT Austin, in high-temperature ceramic fuel cells (Manthiram group). Eleven years at Intel as a Senior Process Development Engineer and Quality & Reliability Engineering Manager.
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Rebecca Pringle
Operations Officer
MS in Innovation and Venture Development, Arizona State University. Six years in venture-based innovation across the Southwest, focused on climate and sustainability.
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Residual Carbon
Carbon project consultancy
Five years developing, commercializing, and financing biochar projects, with established relationships across the industry. Running our feasibility study.
Let’s talk.
Whether you want to invest, buy power or credits, or send us your biomass, there’s one place to start.
- Investors
Back a carbon-negative plant with three revenue streams and proprietary process engineering.
- Power buyers
Secure carbon-negative, around-the-clock power, starting with surplus from our first reactors and growing to fuel-cell output at scale.
- Credit buyers
Secure durable, rigorously validated removal credits from a quality-first producer registries can trust.
- Biomass partners
Turn your hazelnut shells and clean forest residue from a disposal cost into a revenue stream.