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 be looking at R&D risk as a portfolio of opportunities. He says we should be managing the overall risk by recognizing the inter-relationships among the technologies and their ultimate commercialization. He also says that stand alone analysis will miss much of the opportunities that will arise.
When it comes to flexibility he suggests giving yourself options so that you can take advantage of new opportunities as they arise. He says that current ethanol plants are vulnerable going forward since they don’t have the flexibility to move to different feedstocks.
Maya talked about probably breakthroughs in renewable energy technology. She says that it’s important for how you use public and private R&D resources to maximize the investment.
You can listen to my interview with Gordon and Maya here: ff-bio-08-rausser.mp3
Okay. This is the last one for today. But there’s more to come tomorrow.
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 know you’re getting a healthy dose of biofuels here on AgWired today but it all has to do with agriculture and rural America so I hope you’re enjoying it. I’ve been learning a lot, including just how much work the Farm Foundation does.
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.
Besides those out working in the industry we also heard from some university students today at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference. Lance Andrew Stewart is a grad student at the University of Tennessee. He did a very technical presentation on locating ethanol plants.
We had USDA Rural Development represented here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference by Tony Crooks. He works with their rural business cooperatives program and has done a lot of work with communities in the area of ethanol and biodiesel.
Our luncheon speaker today was Paul Willems who works for 
The second session here at the Transition To A Bio Economy conference was on risk and uncertainty.