New Hampshire Wood Ash Biocarbon is a caustic waste product of biomass powered electrical generating plants located in New Hampshire. While we do not consider this to be genuine biochar, thus refer to it as "biocarbon", we must respond to others who purchase New Hampshire wood ash and relabel it as "high grade biochar" resulting in confusion in the marketplace.

Valley Biochar will arrange sales of this product for the convenience of our customers who insist on using these materials on their lands. We request a waiver of responsibility from those who are interested in this product. We do not consider this to be a high grade biocarbon because it has a very high level of caustic ash and requires burning 33 times more wood to produce a pound of carbon than our own patent pending pyrolysis process and other processes we use. Unlike our own processes, New Hampshire wood ash biocarbon is not carbon negative because burning wood to extract the maximum amount of energy produces far more CO2 gas than any other fuel, including diesel fuel, gasoline, oil, and natural gas.*

Our own processes do not burn wood to maximize energy production; we heat wood in the absence of oxygen to maximize carbon output. New Hampshire wood ash biocarbon contains as little as 25% carbon by weight and as much as 60% inorganic ash, while Vertro Biochar contains as much as 80% carbon and as little as 1.62% inorganic ash. 

We are aware of others selling caustic New Hampshire wood ash biocarbon claiming that it contains 90% high grade biochar by volume. We feel this type of measurement confuses the true facts with misleading density calculations. Here is an example of how density calculations can confuse the facts:

Let us assume we are mixing two pounds of caustic ash or lye with one pound of sugar. It is obvious that such a mixture is 67% lye and 33% sugar by weight and would not be healthy if consumed.  Now let's take this caustic mixture and convert it to cotton candy by heating it and expanding it's volume significantly. We know that a pound of cotton candy is much larger in volume than a pound of sugar or a pound of caustic ash. Thus, even though the larger volume of our caustic cotton candy is still 67% caustic ash by weight, it can now be said that the material is 90% sugar by volume and only 10% caustic ash because the sugar is now much lower in density and higher in volume because it expanded when converted to cotton candy. Because caustic lye is denser than carbon and has less volume, it can be confusing to customers if the percentage of carbon is listed by volume. The bottom line is that New Hampshire wood ash biocarbon is mostly ash and as little as 25% carbon by weight, despite those who say it is 90% biochar by volume!

For those interested in New Hampshire wood ash biocarbon, we will sell it at the following prices not including freight:

One 80 yard truckload:

$19 per yard ($1520/truckload) plus freight.  Others sell this for $75 ($6,000) plus freight.

Two yard bag (10 pack minimum):

$50 per bag plus freight. Others sell one two yard bag for $400. plus freight.

*http://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php