The City of Palo Alto, California is currently considering options for how to manage its organic waste stream. An anaerobic digester is being proposed to replace the current incinerator.
The methane producing bacteria living inside anaerobic digesters do break down a lot organic material, but not cellulose (the compound that makes up the cell walls of plants) Yet cellulose is the ideal feedstock for making biochar via pyrolysis. The integration of biochar production with AD facilities holds the promise of producing a rich, dark, carbon sequestering soil amendment, full of nutrients from the digestate and structurally enhanced by the highly porous biochar.
John Miedema is an internationally recognized expert on biochar systems. As founder of the Pacific Northwest Biochar Initiative (PNW Biochar), John has been taking a leadership role in biochar advocacy and research. He is the Director of Biomass Energy for Thompson Timber and Starker Forests in Corvallis, Oregon where he operates an integrated pyrolysis and gasification facility that produces biochar.
Howard Sprouse is an expert in the remediation industry. He has served as a
consultant to Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, assisting with their efforts at developing mycoremediation technology, (the use of fungi to clean a variety of organic contaminants.)
He is the founder of The Remediators Incorporated, an environmental service company specializing mycoremediation and other biological remediation systems.
John and Howard are a founding members of the Oregon Biochar Corp, whose focus is integrating biochar production into biogas plants and composting systems.
Join us for this dinner program and explore how high-tech compost has become!
Register here with mogotix or here via Eventbrite
Location
Bay Cafe Ballroom (by the Palo Alto Golf Course)
1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA
Schedule:
6:00 – Doors Open (Networking)
6:45 – Dinner Starts
7:00 – SVII Business
7:15 – Program Starts
9:00 – Wrap-Up (Networking till close at 9:30)
For more updates, please visit the new SVII web site.
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Cathryn Hrudicka, Founder, CEO and Chief Imagination Officer of Creative Sage™, is a member of the Silicon Valley Innovation Institute.
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