Vega Biofuels Inc., Norcross, Ga., USA, this week announced that it has agreed to build a biochar manufacturing plant in Anchorage, Alaska, that will produce biochar to be used in a high grade agricultural growing medium for legal cannabis growers in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest.

Vega recently announced that it had entered into a reseller agreement with an Anchorage cannabis startup to market Vega’s biochar throughout the State of Alaska. As a result of this effort and the response the company received at the recent Cannacon Convention in Santa Rosa, Calif., Vega now plans to build a manufacturing plant in Anchorage that will produce the torrefied biochar. Vega will utilize patent pending torrefaction technology at the new facility. The specialized machine will be manufactured in Virginia and shipped directly to the Anchorage facility.

Biochar is a highly absorbent specially designed charcoal-type of product primarily used as a soil enhancement for the agricultural industry to significantly increase crop yields. Biochar is made from timber waste using torrefaction technology and the company’s patent pending torrefaction machine. The introduction of biochar into soil is not like applying fertilizer; it is the beginning of a process. Most of the benefit is achieved through microbes and fungi. They colonize its massive surface area and integrate into the biochar and the surrounding soil, dramatically increasing the soil’s ability to nurture plant growth and provide increased crop yield. Cannabis growers currently using biochar as a soil enhancement have reported dramatic increases in plant production.

"The cost of shipping the product from the east coast to Alaska is a major issue that we’ve been working on the past few weeks," stated Michael K. Molen, chairman/CEO of Vega Biofuels. "After the response we received during the Santa Rosa meetings, we finally made the decision to move the manufacturing process closer to our customers and cut out the high shipping costs. The machine will utilize our patent pending torrefaction technology and will have a capacity of approximately three tons per hour. The legal cannabis industry has exploded in places like Oregon and Washington and we see the same trend happening in Alaska. Our product is proven and is currently used in various other agricultural applications, not just the cannabis industry. Eliminating the shipping costs will have a direct impact on our bottom line."

Vega Biofuels Inc. is an energy company that manufactures and markets a renewable energy product called bio-coal and a soil enhancement called biochar, both made from timber waste using unique technology called torrefaction. Torrefaction is the treatment of biomass at high temperatures under low oxygen conditions. More information is available online.