Feeding Earth with Flame—Hudson Valley
Bianca Moebius-Clune serves as Climate and Soil Health Director at American Farmland Trust. She drives U.S. farming toward regenerative systems that rebuild soil, cut emissions, and boost resilience. Bill Hilgendorf, Director of Biochar and Sustainability at White Feather Farm and product director at NY Carbon, turns agricultural waste into carbon-sequestering soil amendments. An industrial-design-trained experimenter, he joins a movement reviving an ancient practice: feeding the earth with controlled fire.
The Work
At White Feather Farm in Saugerties, New York, kilns arranged like a sculpture garden transform waste—wood chips, manure, invasive weeds—into biochar. Low-oxygen burning creates stable carbon that resists decomposition for centuries. Mixed into soil, it shelters microbes, retains water, and cycles nutrients while locking greenhouse gases underground. Bill’s Tigercat 6050 kiln, fed by lumber mill off-cuts, runs 16-hour burns that capture carbon instead of releasing it. NY Carbon scales this across New York State, building transparent carbon removal markets, climate solutions, and green jobs.
Why It Matters
Biochar proves destruction can regenerate. Indigenous Amazonians created fertile “terra preta” soils a thousand years ago that remain productive today. Now, ancestral wisdom meets modern climate needs with elegant simplicity: turn waste into wealth, decay into foundation, apocalypse into resilience. “Traditionally, burning biomass released carbon,” Bianca explains. “Biochar flips that narrative. It’s a paradigm shift.” This goes beyond carbon accounting to reshape how we view endings and beginnings.
Support This Work
White Feather Farm hosts field days and workshops that teach farmers, researchers, and advocates how to turn agricultural waste into biochar.→ Learn more and visit
NY Carbon is accelerating New York State’s transition to net-zero by building transparent carbon removal markets that connect capital, proven technology, and climate-smart agriculture.→ Follow their work
Read the full conversation → Playing with Fire: The Counterintuitive Path to Soil — How burning biomass the right way can sequester carbon for centuries—a climate solution hiding in ancient wisdom.
