Nuke the Forests

H/t to Junkscience.com:

'Biochar' goes industrial with giant microwaves to lock carbon in charcoal - Climate expert claims to have developed cleanest way of fixing CO2 in 'biochar' for burial on an industrial scale

Giant microwave ovens that can "cook" wood into charcoal could become our best tool in the fight against global warming, according to a leading British climate scientist.

Chris Turney, a professor of geography at the University of Exeter, said that by burying the charcoal produced from microwaved wood, the carbon dioxide absorbed by a tree as it grows can remain safely locked away for thousands of years. The technique could take out billions of tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year.

Fast-growing trees such as pine could be "farmed" to act specifically as carbon traps — microwaved, buried and replaced with a fresh crop to do the same thing again. (The Guardian)

Hmm, how much energy will be required to run those "Giant microwave ovens"? Of course this type of technology probably won't be available to poorer countries, so they'll go on happily burning biomass for fuel as they've done since humans began doing so.