Willamette Valley, Oregon
Keeping Oregon’s Carbon in the Ground
Recalcitrant Carbon upcycles the valley’s agricultural byproducts — starting with hazelnut shells — into high-grade biochar and rigorously validated carbon credits. Every ton we make locks carbon away for good.
Fully carbon-negative · Powered by its own process heat · Built for carbon registries
The valley makes more byproduct than it knows what to do with.
Every year the Willamette Valley produces hundreds of thousands of tons of agricultural and forest byproducts. The hazelnut industry alone leaves mountains of shells — and Oregon grows almost the entire country’s crop.
of hazelnut shells produced in Oregon every year, and growing.
Oregon hazelnut industry
of the entire US hazelnut supply is grown here in Oregon.
USDA
Academic research ranks hazelnut-shell biochar among the highest-quality feedstocks studied anywhere.
Peer-reviewed biochar research
One reactor. A region’s worth of shells. Carbon pulled from the cycle.
A single biochar reactor processes up to 8,000 lbs of biomass a day — roughly 30,000 tons a year after downtime. That’s enough to take on the hazelnut industry’s entire annual output, all while running as a carbon-negative power plant.
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Feedstock in
Hazelnut shells and farm byproducts arrive from partners across the valley — solving their disposal problem at the source.
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Pyrolysis
Biomass is baked without oxygen. The process runs on its own heat — one reactor’s exhaust becomes another’s fuel — capturing the carbon instead of burning it off.
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Three products out
Stable biochar, rigorously validated carbon credits, and clean electricity — three revenue streams from one carbon-negative line.
We optimize for quality, not tonnage.
Most Oregon biochar comes from forestry slash and chases volume. We do the opposite — agricultural feedstock, engineered carefully, made to a standard registries and industrial buyers can rely on.
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Agricultural, not slash
Hazelnut shells make a denser, cleaner, higher-value char than the forestry byproducts most producers optimize around.
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Built for registries
An uncompromising commitment to validation, so every credit holds its value in both voluntary and compliance markets.
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Relentless efficiency
Sophisticated process engineering turns waste heat into fuel and one product’s cost into another’s margin.
A market racing to buy what we make.
Demand for high-quality carbon credits is climbing in both voluntary and compliance markets, with producers routinely preselling years of output in advance.
Voluntary carbon-credit market today, projected within ten years.
Compliance carbon markets today, projected within ten years.
Total global biochar market — before its many downstream uses.
Activated-carbon market our char can be upgraded into, and growing.
Carbon with a dozen second lives.
One carbon-negative line yields three products — and the biochar itself goes on to do a remarkable range of work.
- Biochar
- Validated carbon credits
- Clean electricity
- Agricultural soil amendment
- Water filtration
- “Green” concrete & steel
- Acid mine-runoff remediation
- Feedstock for activated carbon
Because shipping raw biomass by weight and finished biochar by volume is costly, these markets stay hyperlocal — an advantage for a valley-based producer.
The people behind it.
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Matt West
CEO & Chief Technical Officer
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Rebecca Pringle
Operations Officer
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Residual Carbon
Strategy & Market Consultant
Let’s talk.
Whether you want to invest, buy credits, or send us your biomass, there’s one place to start.
- Investors
Back a carbon-negative plant with three revenue streams and defensible, patented process engineering.
- Credit buyers
Secure durable, rigorously validated removal credits from a quality-first producer registries can trust.
- Biomass partners
Turn your hazelnut shells and farm byproducts from a disposal cost into offtake value.