Energy from Rice Straw

This project will take rice straw, which is currently a waste material creating environmental problems in intensive rice systems across South and South-East Asia, and demonstrate the feasibility of converting it to a useful energy resource. The research will focus on addressing the very challenging physical and chemical properties of rice straw as an energy feedstock in a way that yields direct benefits for local communities.

Barriers to be overcome include logistics, social integration, technological and economical challenges and institutional support. With such a multi-disciplinary suite of obstacles, a similarly multi-disciplinary team has been assembled to try to negotiate them. Wheat straw physiology and bioenergy technology experts from the SUPERGEN bioenergy hub have teamed up with rice straw experts, engineers, social scientists and extension staff from IRRI to form the core research team. This team will work together in partnership on 5 work packages that will effectively transfer knowledge between the partners to address the obstacles to sustainable development of energy from waste rice straw. These include:
1. Understanding the rice straw and the specific challenges (technical, economic and social) associated with using it for energy purposes
2a. Evaluating the technical and economic performance of different technology options for delivering energy from rice straw - carrying out conversion trials of rice straw in the Philippines using different conversion technologies (e.g. gasification, combustion and anaerobic digestion) to develop projections of how a whole system based on these different conversion options would perform at different scales across a range of technical and economic criteria e.g. capital cost installed, payback time, break even price of heat generated etc.
2b. Using stakeholder engagement to identify the technical and non-technical barriers associated with energy conversion of rice straw, including issues such as viable business models for project development
3. Quantifying the environmental impact of the most promising conversion options, including crucially the greenhouse gas benefits
4. Understanding the energy needs and technology preferences of local communities via focus group discussions, that involve not just farmers (with a feedstock focus) but also their households (as end users with cooking needs, electricity, food storage etc) to account for whole community concerns in a gender-sensitive way. Rice millers, village leaders and policy makers will also be involved in discussions to gain a wider range of perspectives that will inform the study.
5. Enabling development of the rice straw-energy technologies by engagement with a variety of local and international stakeholders and addressing the key issue of development risk by demonstrating technology viability at a facility to be built at IRRI's Experimental Station.

This represents a co-ordinated programme of activities focused on better understanding the particular issues associated with rice straw conversion and addressing these to show what works and what does not. This is a critical step in solving the major environmental and health issue of rice straw burning across Asia, whilst bringing energy access benefits for local communities. The UK partners gain from stretching their understanding of plant performance with an unusually challenging feedstock, which may also have implications for other feedstocks, and by deepening understanding of the socio-political context in developing countries. IRRI benefits from improved understanding of the scientific and engineering challenges posed by conversion of rice straw and how to overcome them. Local communities benefit from reduced environmental hazard and clean energy access. The wider global population benefits from reduced greenhouse gas emissions from rice production and energy use.

The main impact anticipated is to alleviate a significant environmental problem and turn it into an asset that can help provide clean, cost-effective energy services for rural areas in South and South East Asia.

Small-scale rice farmers across S & SE Asia are the ultimate focus of the project, which will be guided by their needs and priorities. The aim of the research is to identify smallholder energy needs and the barriers they face in using rice straw to help meet those needs. Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) will be held in countries across S & SE Asia to bring stakeholders together and inform the research at key stages (inception; after desk study; and in final year) so that the work can be centred around their needs, including the practical, health and social needs of women and children in households as potential energy end users.

Work will involve technology and logistics refinement and business model development so that uncertainties can be reduced and viable solutions validated and "de-risked" by the project deliverables. This is a key market failure that the project would seek to address, by developing working solutions that are attractive to financiers as well as to farmers and their households. Often the lack of purchasing power and the small-scale nature of the technologies required make them less attractive commercial markets for the investment of R&D in technologies. Part of this project would involve setting up a demonstration at the Experimental Station to give proof of concept. Allied to that market failure is a need for different business models that aggregate farmers and technology production to achieve economies of scale, an innovative example of which is the rise of microfranchises in developing countries. Research in these areas will allow the most promising technologies and business models identified in the project to be scaled up to facilitate practical implementation among rice farmers, so that they can benefit directly. The cost to human health of burning rice straw in fields and GHG emissions from rice production and fossil fuel use are other market failures that this work would help overcome.

Lessons learned from this study will be broadcast using the many channels (see full proposal) that can be expected from bringing together two world-class research groups to address a problem. Having identified what works and what does not - not just technically but socially, economically and environmentally - along with the potential development benefits the solutions could bring to rural communities, this project will aim to broadcast that knowledge to accelerate take-up across Asia. A future project could facilitate that roll-out, working with pioneer farmers initially, arising from the FGDs used in this project. From those pioneer farmers further demonstrating what works in different local contexts, with institutional and policy support in place and commercial involvement (technology providers, financial institutions) the solutions could be scaled-up via early adopters to reach the masses. This project aims to be the first, vital step in that process.

Therefore, this research aims to positively impact rice farmers across the region, identifying and improving upon the most promising routes for transforming waste into a clean energy resource that can benefit them and their families.