Can Rice Hulls Replace Concrete and Save The Planet? – Ep 90 with Bryan Eagle – Ep 90 with Bryan Eagle
In this episode of Better Buildings for Humans, host Joe Menchefski sits down with Bryan Eagle, founder of Glanris, to explore a groundbreaking innovation: carbon-neutral concrete made from rice hulls. Bryan shares how his team transforms agricultural waste into a pozzolanic biochar that can replace Portland cement—dramatically reducing the carbon footprint of concrete. They discuss challenges in scaling this technology, how regulations are driving adoption, and where sustainable building materials might gain the most traction globally. Bryan also highlights the circular potential of decentralized kilns that generate not just materials, but power and carbon credits. An inspiring look at how tech, agriculture, and architecture intersect to build a greener future.
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More About Bryan Eagle
Bryan is a serial entrepreneurial team member with multiple successful exits. He co-founded Glanris in 2019 to help address climate change through the development of industrial scale biochar production. Bryan lead the development of Glanris' biochar application development, including the patents on rice hull biochar in water filtration and work done in biochar in cement, inoculated soil amendments, and tire productions. With BET, he helped design their rice hull kiln.
Prior to Glanris, Bryan ran his own consulting/investment company, Memphis Ventures. His primary focus was helping telecom/IoT companies, aviation related companies and supporting companies in the non-profit incubator/foundation he created in 1999, Emerge Memphis.
His experience with IoT systems began when he founded Skywire in 1993 to develop remote monitoring systems. Skywire designed, developed and patented Coca-Cola’s first intelligent vending platform that is still in use today on millions of machines worldwide. Skywire also designed systems for PepsiCo, FedEx and Total Gas among others. He sold Skywire to Marconi Online Systems in 1998. After Skywire his next start-up was Media4 which he helped sell to EchoStar in 1999.
Prior to Skywire, Eagle was a member of the executive management team of Cylix Communications Corporation, a specialized provider of satellite and fiber managed data networks. Eagle was part of the team that led the management buyout of Cylix from GE. After a successful turnaround of the business, Cylix was sold to France Telecom in 1993. Prior to Cylix, Bryan was part of the launch of the Discovery Channel and one of the original shareholders.
Eagle holds a BA from the University of Virginia and an MBA from Columbia University. He also serves on several corporate, educational and community Boards of Directors.
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