Could this technology be adapted to strip-mined areas?

[aquart]

<http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,64871,00.html?tw=newsletter_topstories_html>

I wanted to post this in GD but it's down.

Clean Air Tech Has Ancient Roots

Researchers in the southeastern United States are experimenting with a procedure they believe could reduce greenhouse gas pollution using a discovery pioneered thousands of years ago by farmers in the Brazilian Amazon.

-snip-

The charcoal fertilizer could be used to restore the nutrients in areas around the globe where soil has been depleted, according to Day. He believes charcoal-enhanced soil could increase crop yields by 200 percent to 300 percent.

Eprida has performed a demonstration of the scrubbing process, and Day said the next step is to develop a biomass processing plant adjacent to a coal power plant to test the technology on a large scale.

-snip-

Researchers found that agricultural communities created nutrient-rich oases of fertile black soil in areas that were otherwise nearly barren of calcium and nitrogen. Tribes who treated their soil were able to stay in a single location for hundreds of years, according to Lehmann.

[BrotherBuzz]

1. I'm not a scientist but

where does all this charcoal come from without adding more gasses to the atmosphere? Isn't this kinda like "Robbing Peter to pay Paul"?