Domestic Fuel

The United Soybean Board (USB) has recommitted itself to the support of biodiesel through the soybean checkoff program.

USB chairman Marc Curtis, a producer from Mississippi, and National Biodiesel Board chairman Gary Haer held a joint press conference at AG CONNECT Expo this past weekend to discuss the importance of biodiesel to the soybean industry. “We have research that shows over the last 4-5 years, biodiesel has contributed about 25 cents a bushel to the farm gate price of soybeans,” Curtis said. “So when you multiply 25 cents times several billion bushels, that makes a pretty good return on investment from the $30-40 million that have been invested from farmers’ checkoff money in the biodiesel industry.”

Listen to an interview with Marc Curtis here: Marc Curtis

USB is investing in an outreach effort by the biodiesel industry to spread the word that biodiesel is the only commercially available advanced biofuel. “It’s here today, it’s available now,” said Haer. “We have 1.4 billion gallons of production capability and we just need to get it going.”

Haer is vice president of sales and marketing for REG (Renewable Energy Group), the nation’s largest biodiesel producer, and he is very optimistic about the future now that the biodiesel tax credit has been extended retroactively and through 2011. He is also looking forward to a more upbeat National Biodiesel Conference in Phoenix next month.

Listen to an interview with Gary Haer here: Gary Haer

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Retired General Wesley Clark visited the second AG CONNECT Expo Saturday in Atlanta to talk with farmers and ranchers visiting the event about the importance of ethanol to our nation’s security.

Representing Growth Energy, Clark greeted folks at the CASE IH exhibit on the floor of the agricultural trade show. He also made time for some media interviews to talk about ethanol issues, like what he thinks will happen with ethanol policy this year in Congress. “We need to be thinking ahead about how to fix America’s dependence on foreign oil,” Clark said. “We probably are going to need some incentives for service station owners to invest in blender pump technology and that can be done by giving them some of the credit that is being given right now to the blender itself.” So Growth will probably support some kind of a split in the current tax incentive structure to give some for infrastructure.

Clark also talks about EPA’s rule on E15. “Ethanol is not poison at E15,” he said. “So we need to be sensitive in terms of labeling. We want consumers whose cars can take E15 to use it. It’s good for America. And I think we’re going to win that discussion.”

Listen to my interview with Wesley Clark here: Wesley Clark

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Kenny Wallace, NASCAR driver, says, “Ethanol all the way in NASCAR!” That’s what he told me this afternoon in the American Farm Bureau Federation Pavilion on the floor of the AG CONNECT Expo. Thanks to Tricia Braid, Illinois Corn Growers, for setting up our interview and taking the photo. Kenny was signing autographs in the Nationwide Insurance exhibit.

You won’t find a bigger supporter of the American farmer and in particular that farm made fuel, ethanol. NASCAR is using E15 now and Kenny finds that exciting. Family farmers have supported Kenny recently and will be doing so in a bigger way in the future. He says that he wants farmers to know that he’s helping get their message out to the public. Kenny says he’s had a chance to run a combine and is amazed at the technology built into them! Here’s where you can follow Kenny on Twitter.

You can listen to my interview with Kenny here: Interview With Kenny Wallace

2011 AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

I recently wrote about the potential of energy crops for biofuels, but there are many more opportunities including the biofuels value of planting winter crops or double crops. Last week during the AG CONNECT Expo, I spoke with Dr. Tom Richard, associate professor with Pennsylvania State University, who discussed the opportunities for biofuels and agriculture through the planting and harvesting of winter crops and double crops.

For many decades farmers have been encouraged to plant cover crops as an effort to reduce soil erosion, capture nutrients and improve soil quality. These cover crops are left on the ground and not marketed. The only difference with a double crop, explained Richard, is that it is marketed and becomes a second crop for the year.

“What we’re finding now with the biofuels industry is there’s potential to use what we’ve thought of as cover crops as double crops and actually market the material,” said Richard. “The above ground biomass could be a winter grain like winter rye, winter wheat or winter barley or could be an oil seed like winter canola or could be summer crop.”

Richard also explained that by going to a double crop or a winter crop, you will increase the net energy of the biofuel produced. The reason for this is that you are taking advantage of the sunlight and nutrients for a wider, longer growing season and a farmer can actually increase the productivity of that single piece of land by around 20 percent.

There are also advantages of planting winter or double crops from an environmental perspective. Most notably the roots are taking up nutrients and preventing erosion during the time of year that gets a lot of rain in many places throughout the country. The plants are also adding organic matter to the soil.

I asked Richard what the country needs to do to encourage farmers to begin growing these double or winter crops and he noted that subsidy programs are not enough. “We think a combination of some environmental subsidies plus a market for that second feedstock, that energy crop, will combine to make it a very attractive option.”

Listen to my interview with Tom below.

AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

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One of the biggest challenges for our country lies in the issue of how to create effective public policies that will grow the biofuels industry and reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Dr. Antonio Bento, associate professor in the Applied Economics and Management Program at Cornell University, has been researching exactly how to do this and he shared his results during the AG CONNECT Expo last week.

First we must take a step back to take two steps forward. There are several policies in place that mandate the production of biofuels with the Energy Independence & Security Act having one of the greatest impacts. This act requires 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 with 15 billion coming from corn-ethanol. Bento noted that the country is well on its way to meeting this goal yet surprisingly, “While a lot of public press has blamed the increasing food prices due to these mandates, we find very little effect. Indeed, we find the bulk of the increase in food prices comes from the fluctuation in crude oil prices and our dependence on foreign oil, and less on the land we are devoting for the production of biofuels.”

Speaking of land, Bento also notes that biofuels are disproportionately being blamed for indirect land use effects. This has to do with the fact his framework, unlike a lot of the other models out there, is really accounting for the dynamics. “In other words, we really account for the fact that overtime yields will improve, we account for the fact there’s multiple land use that could adjust and we account for the fact there will be technology progress in the industry,” said Bento.
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In the growing field of biomass conversion to fuel there’s a plant that Mississippi State University thinks will help farmers and all Americans. It’s Giant Miscanthus and you can follow it on Twitter @GiantMiscanthus. They’ve actually licensed the product which is Freedom Giant Miscanthus that’s being marketed by Sunbelt Biofuels LLC. On the show floor at AG CONNECT Expo last week to talk about it were John Holmes (l) and Sunbelt’s Chairman Phil Jennings (r).

Phil says they’re taking the product commercial for MSU. He says they’ve been in the turf grass business for years and this new product caught their attention. He says they’re off to a great start and expect to see a lot of acres signed up in the next couple years as the demand for cellulosic ethanol production increases. John says Freedom is a play on words to denote the ability to become independent of foreign produced oil. Phil says “We know of no other plant that is a perennial, that is renewable as fast as it is that can give us the masses of biomass that we’re looking for.” He says Freedom provides four times the yield per acre of switchgrass.

You can listen to my interview with Phil and John below:

AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

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The Southeast is poised to be the leader in energy crop production according to University of Florida Associate Professor and energy crops expert Dr. John Erickson. He has been focusing on research of perennial grasses, mostly C4 grasses in his work with the Agronomy department. These can include sugarcane, energycane, elephant grasses, miscanthus, giant reed, switchgrass and sorghum.

In terms of output, in the short-term, sugarcane and sweet sorghum look promising. Current studies put sweet sorghum on par with corn in higher latitudes where it is a little colder. In the longer-term, cellulosic feedstocks such as energycanes and elephant grasses are producing upward of 40 megagrams per hectare. These grasses are selected for their fiber content – they don’t have high juice or sucrose contents that sugarcanes do but the yield more biomass.

Perennial grasses offer several advantages, said Erickson, including not having to plant the crops every year so you don’t have renewable annual planting costs and they tend to be a little more efficient in water and nutrient use.

If a grower chooses to grow a perennial crop, that becomes the crop for that land area, explained Erickson. Therefore a grower must commit to a longer-term commitment when they grow perennial grasses. “Some of that will be dependent on how they incentivize, or even if, they incentivize carbon credits and whether or not agriculture has the potential to be involved in that. And so if that becomes a reality then perennial grasses will be viewed more favorably than something like sorghum. If they don’t, than sorghum may do just as well or better than some of these others because they can be worked into rotation with current existing crops.”

Erickson stressed that the results are still in their early stages and crops typically do better in the second year. It will be a year or so before the final results are published, but in general, he notes that perrienal grasses look like they have good potential as energy crops.

AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Listen to my in depth interview with John here.

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The wind energy industry enjoyed some success during 2009 despite the economic down-turn and the difficulty of obtaining private investment dollars. There are currently 31 gigawatts of wind in production throughout the U.S. that has reduced carbon dioxide emissions and water use. New projects have increased economic development and tax revenue and 35,000 new green jobs were created according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). Yet the continued growth of the wind energy industry is going to be seriously challenged by transmission limitations, said Susan Williams Sloan with AWEA during AG CONNECT Expo held in Orlando, Florida.

This is in part what has driven AWEA to support legislation that would develop federal policy on electric grid planning. However, what this policy doesn’t address is who is going to pay for the updated system. The obvious answer: us.

Steve Wegman, with the South Dakota Wind Energy Association not only stresses the importance of transmission challenges, but notes that our country will never see better policy without consumer participation. And without consumer participation, wind energy will be stopped in its tracks.

In the meantime, there is a growing movement to community wind projects. Lisa Daniels, with the Minnesota based non profit Windustry, explains that community wind is about keeping those energy dollars as local as possible. Daniels is especially excited about “renewable projects supplying power for renewable energy.” An example would be an ethanol plant using wind to power its facility.

While citing wind projects can be challenging, all the speakers noted that this shouldn’t be the case. “It shouldn’t take a superhero,” said Daniels. “We need supportive policies and standardized policies.”

Wegman concurred and left the audience to ponder an interesting definition of insanity from Albert Einstein, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.” This, says Wegman, represents our country’s current energy policy.

AG CONNECT Expo Photo Album

Listen here to my full wind energy report.

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ZimmComm New Media is the social media sponsor of AG CONNECT Expo. This is the new show being produced by the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. I’ll be there all next week covering the activities mostly on our AgWired website. Cindy will be joining me mid week and we’ll post information of interest to the renewable fuels industry right here. I know there are several presentations on the subject on the agenda. In the meantime, here’s a preview interview I did this morning with the show director. I used the interview in my weekly podcast, the ZimmCast.

The floor of the upcoming AG CONNECT Expo is very busy right now. This morning I spoke with Show Director, Sara Mooney, who was on-location. In this week’s ZimmCast she provides a last preview and let’s us know how the final preparations are going. I’ll be there by the end of the weekend for the pre-show activities that take place on Monday and Tuesday.

Sara says ACE is meeting or exceeding its goals because of things like the co-located industry events and many educational opportunities in addition to a great trade show. She says they’ve seen a major push in registration in the last couple weeks and the average number of acres farmer registrants have is currently at 3,400. There are registrants from 46 states in the U.S. and from 45 countries.

The 2010 show will feature more than 30 education sessions with top industry experts. More than a dozen events are co-located with AG CONNECT Expo 2010, including Agrievolution, the Second World Summit on Agricultural Machinery. AG CONNECT Expo 2010 has the support of more than 40 leading industry groups worldwide, including as strategic partners Agritechnica, the world’s largest agriculture machinery show, and its organizer, DLG (the German Agricultural Society).

Sara is going wild with her new Flip camera too. Here’s one her latest YouTube videos with one of the exhibitors (Krone).

You can listen to my interview with Sara below:

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The new AG CONNECT Expo debuting next week in Orlando has something for everyone in every area of agriculture, including renewable energy, thanks to the sponsorship of 25x’25.

Breakout sessions on renewable energy scheduled for the expo next week include Renewable Fuels Revolutionizing Agriculture, The Role of Agriculture and Forestry in a Reduced Carbon Economy, Harvesting the Wind, and Bioenergy Feedstocks.

AG CONNECT Expo will be held January 13-15 at the Orange County Convention Center and on-line registration is still available.