Two inventors in Goleta (outside Santa Barbara, California) are developing what sounds like one of those too-good-to-be-true concepts in eco-friendly building materials; Lego-like blocks of rice straw. The company, Oryzatech (oryza is Greek for rice straw) is a start-up, struggling to raise funds for mass production of the product which presently costs too much . .. about $30 per block.
California grows a lot of rice but the silica-rich straw (about a ton and a half of it for each ton of rice grown) is considered a waste product; too hard to gather for composting and not suited for animal feed, farmers burn thousands of acres of it each year, creating dangerous air pollution in the Sacramento Valley and other rice-growing regions of the state.
But, compressed into molds at 300 degrees and mixed with a formaldehyde-free glue the waste product becomes an ideal building block material for housing construction. Rice straw blocks have many advantages over stud wall framing; as tested by Cal Poly the 12" thick blocks have 3 times the insulation value of a 2 x 6 stud wall, are fire and sound proof, and much faster to assemble.
As you can see in the picture above they stack and interlock just like Lego blocks (each is 12" thick, 12" wide, and 24" long which makes them very easy to use) and threaded rebar rods anchor them in place from the top plate (wood member on top of walls that rafters and trusses rest on) down to the foundation for seismic strength. Wood framing is used for windows and doors but the blocks themselves are as workable as wood; sheetrock can be directly attached for example so new construction tools and methods do not need to be developed in order to use the product.
On the ecology side of things the material is almost carbon-neutral, coming as it does from sustainable, organic rice crops. This means it will likely qualify for LEED points (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, the green building rating system that certifies buildings as responsible, green construction). This may lead to tax credits or other monetary incentives for builders, I'm not sure as I have not researched this yet.
And one final, sensible note; the product can (and should) be manufactured on or near the rice farms themselves, right at the source. Production is scalable, big factories operate just as a garage-size one does, so any farmer could also become a producer, using his main crop waste as an added income stream.
For more information go to www.oryzatech.com. They're looking for investors!
They are stacked
No comments:
Post a Comment