Project Ponderosa: Graphyte’s first project built around Western wildfire risk
For a century, fire suppression left these forests overgrown, and the region now carries an extreme wildfire risk. Thinning them is an ecological necessity, but it generates far more material than anyone can use such as small trees, tops and limbs that are normally stacked into slash piles and burned on site, releasing their carbon straight back into the air in addition to degrading the air quality. Forest residuals from restoration and fuel-reduction work, together with mill residuals from local sawmills, are processed to ensure it is dry and inert, we compress it into pellets and then seal the compressed biomass to ensure the biomass never decomposes, and store them underground. The carbon will remain inert for 1000’s of years, and we measure what is stored directly using our proprietary MRV system rather than estimating it. The biomass supply is soured locally in the greater Flagstaff area, anchored by a multi-year agreement with Restoration Forest Products, Arizona’s largest sawmill, and supported by partnerships with The Nature Conservancy and the Arizona Department of Forestry and Fire Management.