Doing is like wanting, only more blatant.
Projects must be suitable for grandchildren.
We, Katharina and Walter, are a father and daughter tinkerer team from Reisbach in Lower Bavaria. With Snow-Leopard Projects GmbH, we have been working in the biomass sector for over 30 years and have built biogas plants in Germany and in 15 other countries on 4 continents. At Snow Leopard, our company philosophy has only 2 points: A project must make ecological sense for us and it must be suitable for grandchildren.
Environmental protection is our passion and so Walter has been active in nature and environmental protection for over 40 years.
Char2Cool e.V. - Non-profit CO2 compensation.
We are a registered non-profit association with the aim of protecting the climate through the use of water hyacinths. We are a two-person core team consisting of Walter and Katharina.
Olivia is no longer part of the Char2Cool team, but of course she still has her place here as an important trailblazer. Together with us, she created the basis for water hyacinth carbonation by developing the Char2Cool-Kiln and setting up production on site.
Char2Cool e.V. – an initiative of
Snow Leopard Projects GmbH
Char2Cool e.V. is a member of the One World Network Bavaria e.V.
Almost everywhere in Bavaria …
people are committed to global justice, solidarity, peace and the preservation of nature.
The One World Network Bavaria e.V. is the Bavarian umbrella organisation of development policy groups / institutions, world shops and local One World networks.
It was founded in 1999 and has over 200 member groups.
The Char2Cool Story.
A journey with NABU.
I’m Walter, as an agricultural engineer I build biogas plants all over the world with my daughter Katharina and work as a consultant, including for the UN and the Nature Conservation Association, in the field of biogas.
In September 2017, I traveled to Ethiopia as a consultant with the Nature Conservation Association to build a plant that would convert the water hyacinths of Lake Tana into biogas. Because at Lake Tana, the water hyacinths proliferate so strongly that they take away the space for many migratory birds for their winter quarters.
Due to the lack of infrastructure and demand for biogas, such a plant was not suitable to solve the problem with the water hyacinths. So we had to leave undone, with a few water hyacinths in our luggage.
The Lower Bavarian garden as an experimental room.
Back home, in Simbach in Lower Bavaria, I couldn’t get the plant and its effect on our climate out of my head. I came up with the idea of charring water hyacinths. I pressed the plants in a vice and tested charring for the first time in a discarded oil barrel in my garden. Many attempts later, we had found it, the jack-of-all-trades:
The Char2Cool-Kiln, a simple pyrolysis oven that can be used to convert water hyacinths into biochar easily and cheaply. There is a local demand for water hyacinth biochar, because it helps to make parched soils fertile again.
The result: simple, sustainable and effective.
This has resulted in a climate saver project that can finance itself in the long term through the sale of water hyacinth biochar.
We usually stay away from sales roars, but the use of water hyacinths does the Herculean job:
Simple, sustainable and inexpensive, it is made from the destructive water hyacinth, creates jobs and food security in poor regions and makes a considerable contribution to climate protection.
Want to know more? Feel free to take a look at our project page.
Still unsure?
This project is close to our hearts and we critically question ourselves and our actions and you can do that at any time. In our Reisbach office, or wherever we are at the moment, we are available and ready for dialogue, because our joint action should not fail because of open questions in your head.
Feel free to contact Walter directly at wd@char2cool.de. Otherwise, we have already answered one or the other question in our FAQ’s.
