The Lapwing Estate has developed a new model for "rethinking peatlands" that both sequesters and abates significant quantities of carbon, while producing food with measurable positive environmental and social impact.
Reverse Coal is a radical, whole-systems approach that restores degraded lowland peat and shifts towards climate-resilient controlled environment agriculture (CEA), with a broad range of interlinked societal, environmental and economic benefits.
The premise of Reverse Coal is to use photosynthesis to remove CO₂ from the atmosphere by growing short rotation coppice willow (SRCW) on rewetted peatland.
This cleans the water of chemicals and abates soil emissions from agriculturally drained lowland peat, while the willow sequesters carbon as it grows.
The woodchip is fed into a high temperature pyrolysis plant, which breaks the biomass down through thermal decomposition: heating the material without oxygen.
Higher temperatures give a more thorough chemical breakdown of the feed, reducing tars and improving yield and emissions.
Three products from one process
A stable, carbon-rich solid that locks carbon away, with potential as a low-carbon substitute for coking coal in steelmaking.
A renewable gas rich in hydrogen and carbon monoxide, being investigated as a feedstock for renewable DME.
Captured heat and CO₂ are used to grow food in controlled environment agriculture.
We are working with industrial partners to turn the outputs of Reverse Coal into low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels.
RePeat is a new project, in partnership with Flogas, investigating how syngas from the pyrolysis plant can be converted into renewable dimethyl ether (DME). DME is a low-carbon gas fuel that can be blended with LPG, offering a route to decarbonise off-grid heating.
RePeat also extends the wider system on the Estate: new willow plantings on rewetted peat and polytunnel growing for soft fruit, alongside lifecycle and whole-farm carbon assessment.
read the announcementWe are working with British Steel to investigate biochar as a substitute for coking coal in steelmaking. Replacing fossil coal with biochar made from recently grown biomass could cut the carbon footprint of UK steel, putting carbon from the land to work in heavy industry.
Trials are characterising our biochar against British Steel's technical requirements to understand how it could be used in their process.
about our biocharClick any part of the plant, or its label, to zoom in. Click again to zoom back out.
All figures are approximate. Utility packages not shown.
The high-grade heat and CO₂ from the pyrolysis plant will be used in controlled environment agriculture, warming growing spaces and enriching them with CO₂ to boost crop growth, for more sustainable food production.
This tackles the most common criticism of biomass projects: the displacement of food production for bioenergy.
By continuing to produce food, this land use change does not push food production overseas or increase global emissions.
Year-round CEA production strengthens domestic food supply rather than relying on imports.
Commodity grain and arable crops lost to biomass are substituted with high-health fruit and vegetables.
Renewable heat and CO₂ make CEA close to net zero, replacing imported food grown under glass with fossil-fuel heating.