Rice team wins Ike contest

By Jaclyn Youngblood     1/8/09 6:00pm

Before the Owls reigned victorious in the Texas Bowl, a different group of Owls beat over 200 participants to claim first place in Houston's Recycle Ike Contest. A group of Rice faculty and staff members led by Wiess College senior Jeremy Caves and Earth Science Postdoctoral Research Associate William Hockaday created a proposal to turn the 5.6 million cubic yards of debris, including fallen trees and other green waste, left by Hurricane Ike into atmosphere-friendly biomass charcoal known as Biochar. "There are two things you can do with dry plant material," Assistant Earth Science Professor Carrie Masiello said. "You can burn it, which is to combust it in the presence of oxygen, or you can pyrolyze it, which is to heat it in the absence of oxygen."

Biochar, the result of the latter of these two options, acts as a carbon trap, decreasing the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere during the natural and fire-induced decomposition of agricultural matter, Masiello said. Along with greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide is known to contribute to global warming. Masiello also said plant productivity can double or even quadruple when Biochar is introduced as a fertilizer. Finally, Biochar is capable of generating small amounts of electricity by capturing methane and hydrogen off-gases, Masiello said.

City of Houston officials wanted to avoid sending the woody debris left behind after Hurricane Ike to local landfills, a process that can cost $30-$40 per ton, Caves said. The competition sought to increase interest in sustainability and generate solutions to take care of the debris left by Hurricane Ike.

---

---

"When I saw this [competition outline]," Caves said, "I thought, 'Wow, this is a great application of Biochar.'"

Caves heard about the competition through an e-mail forward and, later, in a Houston Chronicle article. He contacted Hockaday and expressed interest in submitting a proposal advocating Biochar. Caves met with experts on Biochar, including Hockaday, Masiello, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Chair Kyriacos Zygourakis and Director of Sustainability Richard Johnson, to determine what ideas to include in the proposal.

Caves remarked that the efficient process of pyrolyzing material under low or no oxygen conditions and in extreme heat of 400 to 500 degrees Celcius is not new - early Native American groups used the process for agricultural reasons.

The team's BioChar proposal could assist Houston not only with Ike debris, but also the city's annual 90,000 metric tons of "green waste," or biodegradable organic material such as leaves and branches.

Furthermore, if the administration of President-elect Barack Obama institutes a carbon cap-and-trade system, the carbon sequestered from the debris could be sold for $15-$25 per ton, Caves said. This would bring in new revenue for the city while cutting carbon emissions annually by the equivalent of 17,000 cars. Caves said the Biochar from the Ike debris would eliminate emissions equivalent to removing 240,000 cars for one year.

As the first place winners, the team received $10,000 presented at City Hall on Dec. 10 by Mayor Bill White. With the prize money, the team will continue research on Biochar and are also looking to build a Biochar reactor at Rice for future experimentation on campus, a project Hockaday would oversee.

Rice alumnus Ian Ragsdale (Hanszen '08) won third place and a $2,500 prize for his proposal to turn the debris into mulch for a series of urban farms that would encourage urban agriculture and produce food for the community.

---