Press

 “BioEnergy could be the way of the future”
Gary Radloff | LaCrosse Tribune | February 24, 2008
“With the rural Midwest sitting on half of the nation’s 1 billion tons of surplus, low-cost biomass on its croplands, pasturelands and forests, could we be the future energy producer that powers America’s cars and trucks?...” Read more

“Solution to Energy Independence is at Local Level”
Frank Holdmeyer | Wisconsin Agriculturalist | February 6, 2008
“The overriding them from speakers at the Midwest Ag Energy Conference in Madison, Wisconsin on Tuesday was that the United States is on the brink of the greatest transition in several generations…” Read more

Wisconsin Eye Summit Coverage: Archived under “02.06.08 | Midwest Ag Energy Conference”

Press Releases

MADISON – Congress has mandated a six-fold increase in biofuel production and states around the country have also mandated a nearly six-fold increase in electric generation from renewable sources such as wind. But what are the best policies to put in place to ensure the investments are long-lasting and have maximum benefits for the economy?

That question, said David Morris, author of the Institute for Self Reliance and the author of "Driving Our Way to Energy Independence,’’ said the question is still open – and now is the critical time for rural America to provide answers.

"Congress has mandated a six-fold increase in boil fuels, two thirds of which will be produced using a technology that has not yet been developed and a feedstock that has not yet been identified,’’ Morris told the Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit in Madison Tuesday.

The United States can produce more biofuels from corn and crop waste, but can it produce it better?

Now is the time to ask the question as the nation races to meet those mandates, provide energy security for the nation, and wrestle with new energy production that reduces greenhouse gas emissions that lead to global warming, he said.

If the forces of this production are locally owned, Morris added, the benefit to the economy of local communities is 20 percent higher. If the investment in these facilities are locally owned, they’re politically easier to build – and the investments are long term.

"Wall Street is now involved,’’ he said. So investment policies based solely on tax investment credits, by their nature, attract absentee owners looking for ways to reduce their taxes – and people who maximize their value by investing, then selling, the assets.

There are other ways Congress can create incentives and subsidies to build biofuels systems other than tax breaks that will have far more economic benefit to far more people, he said.

The numbers – and the potential – are staggering, he added. If the United States builds enough biofuel plants to produce 20 billion gallons of ethanol fuel, policies to create local ownership could produce as many as 30,000 owners, nearly the equivalent of the number of the nation’s full-time grain farmers.

The time is now "to build a system that doesn’t must produce more, it produces better,’’ Morris said.

The conference, called "Next Generation Ag Energy -- Policies to Advance Regional Growth'' -- continues today.

MADISON – The U.S. economy is enormously inefficient in the way it produces, uses and distributes energy – and the nation’s primary challenge is to “build a civilization that will allow us to fly into 2100,’ a leading rural development specialist told the Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit Tuesday in Madison.

“The system we have has too much drag and not enough lift,’’ said Randy Udall, one of the nation’s leading energy sustainability activists. With America’s economy struggling and world petroleum exports peaking – and possibly declining, “prosperity in this country needs to be focused on energy policy.’’

It won’t be easy, said Udall, son of the late Arizona U.S. Rep. Morris Udall. Even at today’s prices, energy is still extraordinarily inexpensive in the United States. New energy policy won’t just focus on renewable energy, it will also focus on wide dispersal of ownership so that innovation and competition can produce new sources of energy more rapidly and more efficiently.

A number of nations and a number of states are already leading in this, he said, noting that Colorado instituted the first solar energy initiative and a carbon tax to help reduce fossil fuel use and stimulate green energy purchasing.

What probably won’t play a role in the future, Udall said, are fuels such has hydrogen, which take enormous amount of energy to produce. Even corn ethanol, which is currently expanding in production around the Midwest, produces two units of energy for every unit required to produce the fuel. Wind energy, he said, provides a return of 30 to one.

Udall was the Tuesday keynote speaker at the two-day Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison. The conference is focused on policies needed to help lay the groundwork for a future America powered by renewable fuels largely produced in the Midwest.

"We’re at a critical time in human history when we have this nexus of climate change, a national need for energy security, an economic need in rural America, and world upheaval – all related to the supply and price of oil, said Jocie Iszler, director of the seven-state Midwest Ag Energy Network.

“The Midwest has the wind, biomass the human capital an the technical expertise to help provide energy and economic security for the country. And we’re all here learning from each other on how best to do that.’’

MADISON – More than 140 agricultural, energy and rural development leaders from around the Midwest launched the second annual Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit at the Monona Terrace Convention Center in Madison Tuesday to help lay the groundwork for a future America powered by renewable fuels largely produced in the Midwest.

"In Wisconsin, we're already producing a half a billion gallons of ethanol a year,'' said Wisconsin Agriculture Secretary Rod Nilsestuen, told the Summit. If scientists can develop efficient methods of converting biomass, such as wood and crop waste to ethanol, "we can double that. I'm told that will replace 18 billion barrels of oil. Replacing that oil means "multi-billion dollar opportunities.''

The task before policy makers, he said, will be to build a network of energy production facilities to raise, collect and process crop and forest materials into fuel -- and  do it without damaging the environment or hurting the nation's ability to grow food and fiber. It's also a challenge to build an infrastructure that provides economic opportunities for as many people as possible.

"If we don't do our homework, we'll only be laying a footprint for Exxon, said Nilsestuen, who heads Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. "We're pumping billions of dollars in the Middle East.'' Replacing that oil with renewable fuels allows us to seize many opportunities.''

Wisconsin, like most Midwestern states, is moving quickly, he said. Gov. Jim Doyle has established an Office of Energy Independence and provided a $150 million fund to foster the growth of biofuels in Wisconsin. In addition, the University of Wisconsin was just awarded a $150 million federal grant to site the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a federal lab that will spearhead the nation's effort to produce alcohol fuels from crops and forest products.

"We will be looking for a source of energy that is diffuse and the ownership diverse,'' he said. The conference is designed, "to take this another step forward.''

For more Immediate Release
Contact: Mike Flaherty or Sally Merckx
Ph. 608-332-5200

MADISON (Jan. 30) – Agricultural, energy and rural development experts from around the nation will gather Feb. 5 and 6th in Madison, Wisconsin to discuss the enormous economic impact on the rural Midwest if America succeeds in replacing gasoline supplies with bio-fuels and turns more heavily to wind, solar and other strategies to heat homes, power the economy, and reduce global warming.

The second annual Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit, entitled “Next Generation Ag Energy: Policies to Advance Regional Growth” will feature rural economic development experts David Morris and Randy Udall as the two-day conference explores bio-energy technologies, policies, and their impact on the economy of rural America, especially the Midwest.

“We already know, for example that corn-based ethanol, has had a positive impact on rural America’s economy,’’ said Gary Radloff, a senior official with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection and the chair of this year’s summit. “The question -- as the summit’s title implies – is: What’s Next?

The United States spends more than half a trillion dollars a year on gasoline – and research shows that a quarter to as much as half of that fuel can be replaced by fuels made from cellulosic materials such as wood, grass and agricultural waste.

“If that effort is successful, imagine the far-reaching economic impact on rural America,’’ Radloff said. “The key question is who will develop, control and benefit from a new industry that harvests and processes bio-mass into fuels? What happens when America turns to renewable energy of all types?”

Biofuels, wind, solar and other renewable fuels will also be part of a national strategy to reduce carbon emissions that lead to global warming, he added. Ten Midwest governors last year signed a sweeping agreement to reduce greenhouses gasses. So this summit “doubles the incentives for the success of bio-fuels – and that’s why the summit focuses on “energy security as well as climate stewardship.’’

Madison is a timely choice for this year’s conference because the federal government recently sited the nation’s Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Çenter at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Radloff added. The lab’s objective is to develop cost-effective ways to convert bio-mass into alcohol fuel.

“The task before us is to think this through to ensure policies and resources are in place to grow the nation’s renewable energy industry. The Midwest Ag Energy Network is a policy incubator. So thinking this through is what this year’s conference is designed to do.’’