That kinda feels like the only positive story would be off a really negative aspect. Something like it kills you quick with a heart attack or stroke in your sixties rather than long and drawn out and medically expensive affair of normal death from old age, saving medicair from insolvency.
According to some light research, and as is common in science, the answer is “yes, but…”.
The trailing “but” being that it all depends on proper utilization and the project in general. While biochar is carbon-negative, if there is enough carbon-positive emissions in a project it could offset the biochar, for instance.
it's carbon-negative if you include the process of plant growth that produced the biomass
basically the carbon-negativity idea is that the charcoal isn't biodegradable so it will stay out of the atmosphere for a long time. also you can burn the gases produced (which actually contain most of the carbon) to keep them from releasing methane
Not sure why you call woo woo on what appears to be a practical and promising method to both sequester CO2 and improve soil quality, and all this using a relatively low-tech and cheap technology with material that is already lying around the surface in abundance (crop residues). Nerds need not despair either since one can both just burn collected stalks and husks in a controlled way by piling, incinerating and quenching stuff in a controlled right on the land, or else do the same in a more closely controlled way monitoring temperatures and chemical processes. There's stuff to do for both the bottom-uppers and the top-downers here!
