When it comes to infrastructure needs for a bio economy our rural road system is a key component. To speak about it here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference we heard from Frank Dooley, Purdue University. He sees a big increase in grain production, primarily in the midwest. With that comes a growing demand for transportation. He thinks we should be concerned because most of the corn will be moved by truck and that’s going to impact rural roads. He also sees an increase in rail transportation but not significantly.
He’s worked on a project with the state department of transportation in Indiana to study traffic flow changes and suggests that more of this type of research needs to be done. He says that a 100 million gallon ethanol plant will have up to 110 trucks in per day.
You can listen to my interview with Frank here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/farm-foundation/ff-bio-08-dooley.mp3]
You can also download the interview using this link (mp3).