Our luncheon speaker today was Paul Willems who works for BP Energy Biosciences Institute. He says it’s a collaboration between the University of California, Berkely, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Illinois and BP. Paul says that their mission is to apply modern biology towards energy problems. The Institute was started in November of 2007 and is currently …
R&D Risk in Renewable Fuels
Two key words in a presentation at the Transition To A Bio Economy Conference were flexibility and diversification. These are important to managing risk, especially in R&D for renewable fuels. Our presenter was Gordon Rausser, University of California, Berkeley, who was here with his assistant Maya Papineau. I interviewed them both together after the presentation. Gordon says that we should …
Switchgrass Risks
The second session here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference was on risk and uncertainty. Jim Larson, University of Tennessee, talked about farmers risk in growing switchgrass as a biomass feedstock for fuel production. He says that this is a commodity that will come into play looking forward. His research shows that it’s risky for farmers because it’s …
Getting Down To The Farm Level
One of our speakers here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference brought the discussion down to the farm level. John Miranowski, Iowa State University, spoke about the impact of biofuels on the rural economy and the farm structure. He says that their numbers indicate that increasing biofuels production will have a positive impact on rural communities and farm …
Biotech Needed to Increase Biofuels
Like the first speaker on our program today here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference, our second speaker, David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, says we need to increase agricultural productivity. His talk was on the distributional effects of biofeuls and he had two conclusions. The first one is that biofuels make some people better off and some …
Ryan Hunter-Reay Pumps Up Team Ethanol
I finally got to meet the Team Ethanol driver, Ryan Hunter-Reay. Ryan was on hand at the Kum & Go pump promotion and posed here with the Highway Patrolmen who helped us with security and traffic and other drivers. He’s the tall guy on the left. Cindy and Laura have already had a chance to meet him. This is my …
Bio Economy Transition
Biofuels have been making headlines all over the place lately. I’m sure the weather in the central United States is going to continue to fuel the issue. It’s also taking us out on the road a bit this month. Cindy’s at the Fuel Ethanol Workshop and later this week I’ll be at the Iowa Indy Corn 250. Next week I’ll …
Food and Fuel From ICM
Cindy is attending this week’s Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Nashville, TN and will be primarily posting onto Domestic Fuel. I think she’s in the process of uploading some photos as we speak. This one is from when she attended LifeLine Foods opening last fall. I thought it was appropriate in light of this announcement from ICM, Inc. This is exactly …
Food Before Fuel?
As if we didn’t have enough confusion about the whole food and fuel issue, now we’ve got a new “coalition” with an agenda and a website. There’s a built in blog with no posts too. I really recommend posting on your blog if you want anyone to visit it and if you want any credibility. This one is called Food …
Kemin Hosts Swine Summit
Swine Summit attendees can look forward to playing a game of P-I-G and 3-point with members of the Iowa Energy D-League NBA team organization this year. Of course, the summit will be getting down to business too with a host of speakers that will focus on “Netting More Energy” in pork production. Kemin Industries Inc. will host swine veterinarians, nutritionists …