This one’s different. Not a tech startup. Not a corporate buyer. A local council in rural England just became the first UK local authority to partially own a biochar carbon removal system.
Shropshire Council has partnered with Raft Energy and Biodynamic Carbon (a joint venture between the council and Carbon Hill Ltd.) to produce activated biochar and generate verified carbon removal credits.
How it works
The system — already operational near Welshpool — integrates biochar production with existing anaerobic digestion (AD) infrastructure. Raft Energy’s product, ActiCH4R, is an activated biochar that gets added to biogas plants. The biochar:
- Boosts energy output from anaerobic digestion
- Improves fertiliser quality from the digestate
- Locks away carbon permanently — generating certified removal credits under the European Biochar Certificate (EBC)
A second unit, fully owned by the council, is being commissioned this spring in Ludlow.
Why this matters
CDR usually makes headlines through billion-dollar DAC plants or tech startup funding rounds. This is the opposite: small-scale, practical, integrated into existing waste infrastructure, owned by a local government.
The economics work because biochar serves triple duty — energy boost, soil amendment, and carbon removal. It’s not a pure CDR play that needs carbon credit revenue to survive. The carbon credits are a bonus on top of operational value.
It’s also a model for other local authorities. The UK has hundreds of AD plants. If biochar integration can work in Shropshire, it can work anywhere with organic waste streams and a pyrolysis unit.
Shropshire isn’t going to single-handedly solve climate change with a biochar kiln near Welshpool. But this is what deployment looks like at the municipal level: unglamorous, practical, and quietly effective.
Source: Shropshire Council Newsroom