To wrap things up here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy conference I spoke with board member, Cornelius Gallagher. He says the conference brought together world class leaders who were able to listen to some fantastic presentations. I’ve posted interviews with almost all of them so please scroll back through them. Corny, as he likes to be …
Chevron in Biofuels
We heard from Chevron here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference since according to Paul Bryan, the company has made a major commitment to biofuels. He says they created a biofuels business unit about 2 years ago. Their focus is on 2nd generation biofuels that use non-food crops. His talk focused on the integration in the biopetroleum business. …
Ethanol Investing Decline
The issue of investment and financing for ethanol plants and bio refineries in general was addressed today by Chris Groobey, Baker & McKenzie, LLP. He works on project financing with investors and lenders and mostly in renewable fuels. He painted a pretty bleak picture. In fact, he says the New York investment community is not interested in biofuels right now. …
Transporting Biofuels By Rail
During our discussion on the infrastructure needs of a Transition To A Bio Economy, we heard from Paul Hammes, Union Pacific Railroad. Of course his focus was on rail infrastructure and as it relates to biofuels. Specifically, he spoke to the different pieces of that supply chain like rail cars, the rail network and unload/load capacity. He says that the …
Rural Development Policy
The opening speaker for day two of Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy conference is our USDA Under Secretary for Rural Development, Thomas Dorr. He talked about rural policy and we visited for a while before the session got started. He says that rural policy is more important and timely a topic now than it has ever been, especially …
EPIC’s Year of Opportunity
The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council has places to go if you ask the organization’s newly elected board president. Greg Kissek with Prairie Horizon Agri Energy says EPIC has come a long way, but there’s still much to accomplish. Greg says he’s “looking forward to this year of opportunity” with EPIC. Chuck spoke with Greg at EPIC’s first annual meeting. …
The Cost of Biomass
Sarah Brechbill, Purdue University, got to put her masters degree project on the stage today here at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy conference. She looked at the cost to get biomass to a plant and specifically looked at switchgrass and corn stover. She says that there’s really no one answer to what’s best for everyone. However, she …
Cellulosic Ethanol Co-Products
We hear a lot about co-products with ethanol production like the DDGS but what about in cellulosic ethanol production? Well, Danielle Julie Carrier, Arkansas State University is doing work on that subject. I was very interested to hear that there are some possibilities. She’s working with switchgrass and they’ve found that if you wash the feedstock prior to the pre-treatment …
Making Ethanol From Dry Peas
During our last session of the day here at the Farm Foundation, Transition To A Bio Economy Conference, our speakers talked about some feedstock and co-product issues of ethanol production. First up was Abhishek Goel, North Dakota State University. He did work on using dry peas to supplement corn in an ethanol plant. The idea was to reduce supply risk …
Answering Ethanol Plant Location Questions
On the subject of locating a biorefinery we had another presentation on the subject here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference. This one was by David Perkis, Purdue University. He says the purpose of his work is to answer questions that local decision makers have such as, Where to locate plants?, What do we have to prepare for?, …