This Berwyn green tech company is in the running for a $25M prize

The Biochar Company, a Berwyn-based green tech company, is one of eleven finalists in entrepreneur Richard Branson’s $25 million environmental business challenge.

Called the Virgin Earth Challenge, the competition tasks entrepreneurs with developing technology that could remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Judges, including Branson and Al Gore, chose 11 finalists out more than 10,000 applicants in the fall of 2011.

That $25 million is all still a distant possibility: there’s no set timeframe for when the judges will choose a winner or multiple winners, or if they’ll even choose one, according to the rules.

The Biochar Company, which merged with a Colorado-based company earlier this year, developed a kind of charcoal that can “increase soil’s ability to hold water and nutrients” and “lasts for centuries,” company ambassador Bob Cirino, or “Biochar Bob,” told WHYY’s The Pulse.