Carbon sequestration is simply the capture and indefinite storage of carbon, in a myriad of forms, to keep it safely out of the atmosphere where it could contribute to growing pollution concerns. There are many natural forms of sequestration, but they simply cannot keep up with the rate at which CO₂ is being produced world-wide.

Centuries ago, Amazonian Indians used charcoal combined with organic materials as a fertilizer for their crops. This charcoal, now dubbed biochar has a very high carbon concentration and this intrigued scientists. Could biochar be used a modern carbon sequestration process?

It turns out that it does perform extremely well for this purpose. Not only does biochar capture a very large amount of carbon, gasses produced in its manufacture can be used to create energy.

The original biochar was likely produced by burning cornstalks, wood, grass or other organic matter in the absence of oxygen. The Cornell scientists studying the various economic and ecological impacts of the process used more modern materials such as yard waste, switchgrass and agricultural corn waste. They found that switchgrass returned the highest value, but both yard waste and corn waste also yielded a net reduction in CO₂ emissions. Of these emissions, approximately 65% of the reduction was realized by the carbon sequestration in the biochar.

It's anyone's guess what kind of simple technologies or processes science may have been missing by looking only forward. This small look backwards has yielded impressive results. Everyone knows the rhetoric that studying history can prevent mistakes in the future and now another valuable lesson about history providing science for the future has been learned.