AgWired

Michael Schaal is with the Energy Information Administration which is part of the U. S. Dept. of Energy. He spoke early on the program at the Farm Foundation conference about the global outlook for energy.

He says they were actually looking at trends through 2030. He says that developing countries will be significantly increasing their fuel consumption which will increase the use of vehicles. All sorts of fuel production will be needed to meet this growing need. He says that with low world oil prices the production of biofuels is low and the converse is true. So the uncertainty of the price of oil is key to the development of biofuels. This is something all the speakers have mentioned today.

You can listen to my interview with Michael here: ff-global-09-schaal.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You can find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album

Wally Tyner is an energy economist with the Dept. of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University. He’s one of the first speakers on the Farm Foundation, Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global Trade and Policy Issues. I was able to speak with him before the program kicks off this afternoon here in Washington, DC.

Wally says Farm Foundation decided to host a series of conferences a couple years ago. There are to be five in all and this is the fourth one. You can find out information about them on the Farm Foundation website.

This conference will focus on biofuels from a global perspective with participation from the European Union and Brazil. We’ll hear some contrasting viewpoints since Wally says that the EU has taken a different approach to requiring biofuels than the US. In his presentation he’ll focus on cellulosic or second generation biofuels. The hope is that the conference will incite or promote discussion even though Farm Foundation itself doesn’t take positions. He says they believe they’ve accomplished the objective with the conferences so far.

The next one in the series will focus on extension and it’s role across the country in biofuels production. It will be held in Arkansas in June.

You can listen to my interview with Wally here: ff-global-09-tyner.mp3

You can download the interview with this link (mp3).

You’ll be able to find photos from the conference here:
Transition To A Bio Economy Conference: Global & Trade Issues Photo Album