It was standing room only at the Town Hall Meeting featuring U.S. Senator John Thune at the 2009 South Dakota State Fair in Huron, S.D. last week. The senator was welcomed to a standing ovation after he was introduced, and from there, he presented a powerpoint detailing spending and deficit projections. However, it was the question-and-answer segment of the town …
Growth Energy Calls For COOL For FUEL
Gen. Wesley Clark, Growth Energy, made a major announcement this morning at the Farm Progress Show. The organization is calling for country of origin labeling for fuel. I would call that the “COOL for fuel” initiative! Hey, we do it with food, why not fuel? General Wesley Clark, Co-Chairman of Growth Energy, today called on the United States Congress and …
Pulling With Biodiesel
This soybean grower from Missouri doesn’t plant corn with the machine he’s standing next too. No way. But he does power it with a biodiesel blend and compete in tractor pulls across the United States. He’s Dennis Shramek and one of the competitors in this weekend’s NTPA Midwest Extreme Truck and Tractor Pull. Thank you to the United Soybean Board …
Don’t Miss Out on the Communicating Renewables Webinar Series
Calling all communications professionals. What is one of the most difficult challenges we face? Developing campaigns that will garnering consumer support and product adoption. An example of just how difficult this can be is the corn-ethanol industry. Consumer support has been dwindling for months and this has in part, been driving by media hostility and biased reporting. So what is …
Biotech Playing Key Role In Production Of Biofuels
I spoke with Paul Willems, BP Energy Biosciences Institute, one of our speakers at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. I had met him previously at an earlier conference in the series. Paul says the BP Energy Biosciences Institute was created as a place to apply modern biology to energy problems. He told us that from their …
Wind Farmers
Biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel weren’t the only energy alternatives on the program at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. We also had a presentation on wind energy from Mark Willers, Minwind Energy. Mark says Minwind Energy was formed by a group of local farmers and businessmen in southwest Minnesota. He’d like people to understand that the …
Biodiesel Good Fit For Carbon Reduction
The legislative guru for the National Biodiesel Board is Manning Feraci. He was on the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference program. He gave us an update on the current state of the biodiesel industry and the need for stable policies coming out of DC. He says that he sees some real opportunities now as some of the …
Carbon Is New Ag Commodity
I think Joel Velasco, Brazilian Sugarcane Industry Association, had the quote of the day here at the Farm Foundation Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. He said that “carbon is the new agricultural commodity” and that “our incentive is to produce less of it and get paid for it.” So, grow a crop, sell it and maybe earn some carbon …
How Biofuels Policies Affect Trade
Seth Meyer is with the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI). He’s also a speaker here at the Farm Foundation’s Transition To A Bio Economy Conference. He talked to us about how biofuels policies are affecting commodity prices and trade but he says there are a lot of other factors affecting export volume. For example, he says that even …
Loosening OPEC’s Grip On Price
We know that OPEC has had a monopoly control over the price of oil on the world market and we hope that the increase of more environmentally friendly biofuels will force that to change. However, David Zilberman, University of California, Berkeley, has created a model to measure how much impact we’re having. I spoke to David here at the Farm …