Emerging Biomass Markets in Minnesota

I was in Fairmont, MN yesterday for a meeting hosted by Rural Advantage on the emerging biomass markets in Minnesota. This meeting was focused on technologies currently in use as well as emerging technologies. While some of the presentations were heavy on the chemistry behind the process, it was very interesting to get a good introduction to the process that converts biomass to transportation fuels.

Roger Ruan from the University of Minnesota Biorefining Center gave a presentation on the basic technology behind the gasification and pyrolysis technologies. Both have great potential for adding value to under utilized biomass. In addition, both processes produce by-products that can be used as fertilizer on the fields where the biomass was taken from. This closed loop model is especially important as prices for fertilizer have increased substantially in recent years. It also addresses some concerns about the sustainability of harvesting large amounts of biomass from areas that could be considered ecologically fragile.

Due to current and likely future economic conditions in agriculture, fields dedicated to biomass production are likely to be in areas unproductive for traditional row crop production. These areas may include, but not limited to highly erodible hillsides, low lying poorly drained areas, and areas with soils too thin to support the nutrient requirements of traditional agriculture. Sustainability guidelines for biomass production need to be established and adopted on a widespread basis in order to assure the continued productivity of our lands. We need to focus on developing this sector of agriculture in an sustainable manner from the beginning in order to avoid costly remediation in the future.

This potential for decentralized energy production in rural areas bodes well for the economic future of rural Minnesota. The difficulty of transporting bulky biomass long distances moves the economics of this type of energy production model toward smaller scale plants. Thinking of energy production on these terms requires a complete revision of our concept of energy production that has been dominant since the invention of the automobile.

A Lighter Shade of Green: Changing Views of Biofuels

Bio Fuels have been getting a bit of bad press as of late, in case you hadn't noticed. Recent research released from the Journal Science shows substantial carbon losses when lands are converted to biofuel production. These carbon losses are so large that the carbon savings from producing biofuels on these lands will take in some cases hundreds of years to make up the initial losses caused by clearing forests of tilling peat lands in order to plant biofuel crops.

While this is somewhat intuitive to anyone with a few ecology 101 credits, the obvious may be lost on the general public and policy makers. While these findings may come as an unwelcome criticism of the biofuel boom, an objective and critical analysis of this industry is essential. We need to develop a sustainable foundation now for the energy sector of coming decades.

Likewise it is foolish to paint the entire biofuel industry as being equal to corn ethanol and soy based biodiesel, as much of the media tends to. The biofuel industry in reality is a diverse mix of technologies and feedstocks. The sustainability of our future energy production depends on policy makers being able to see beyond the short term political gains they receive by blindly supporting some ill-conceived subsidies.

We need the ability to look beyond our own field borders to see what effects our actions(or inactions) are having on the rest of the world. We have for the most part been unprepared and unwilling to consider what effects the run up on commodity prices has had on food supplies, land costs and land use practices thousands of miles away. "Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuel for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuel sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuel. Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products. " (T. Searchinger et al.)

While this study will be scrutinized and disputed, the questions raised here are valid and need to be discussed. We need to know if the energy technologies we are investing millions of our tax dollars in are providing the benefits claimed. Regardless of which crop associations or political lobbyists are tied to a particular technology we need to objectively examine the application and support of these technologies.