Restoration & Regeneration
Parallel to development of regenerative energy energy systems, Trollworks has been working for over a decade on technologies that accelerate the restoration and regeneration of degraded lands. Trollworks solutions in this sector include:
Soil Regeneration
Working in collaboration with Dr. David Johnson at New Mexico State in Las Cruces, NM, Trollworks is developing systems to combine biochar with high fungal innoculants that can significantly accelerate the regeneration of soils damaged by years of neglect or or mismanagement. These treatments have also demonstrated the capability of dramatically increasing soil capacity to hold water and sequester carbon. Trollworks is currently developing inoculum development systems that can be paired with the TW BeCCS system to expand the uses and markets system operators can serve with the biochar they produce.
Carbon cycle improvements with biochar. Photo credit unknown.
A photo depicting Trollworks’ zerosion technology by Gordon West.
Zerosion
The rapidly increasing scale and intensity of wildfire throughout the western US and Canada create enormous threats to communities and entire regions. One of these threats is soil destabilization and the prospects for massive erosive events following fires. Few effective soil stabilization treatment systems have been developed. Frequently deployed systems such as “bale bombing” from helicopters, aerial seeding and other measures are tremendously costly and have limited to negligible long-term benefits to stabilization. Trollworks has developed a unique method of using low-grade wood waste to create a highly durable erosion control matrix that can be sprayed on with readily available technologies modified for this purpose. These systems have been successfully demonstrated on forest fire sites and arid mine-site reclamation projects—some of the most difficult restoration projects in the world.
Application of Trollworks’ zerosion technology for mine site restoration, by Gordon West.
Landscape showing impact of mine waste.
Toxic Waste Remediation
Trollworks produced char products have been tested by Sandia National Laboratories in treatment of mine waste water similar to the pollutant loads in the Gold King Mine catastrophe that contaminated hundreds of miles of the Animus River in Colorado and Utah. Trollworks char was found to be very effective in removing the majority of toxic waste substances. Trollworks is also working with Dr. Katie Brewer at New Mexico State to develop customized biochar production characteristics that maximize its effectiveness for treatment of groundwater contamination at the White Sands Missle Range. Groundwater at this site was previously contaminated by years of rocket fuel testing as part of the NASA space program.