02/08/08 Energy Development

Energy Development. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. It's one thing to talk about bringing renewable energy to the table and quite another thing to make it a reality. There are so many different variables and aspects to consider. But one thing is pretty much assured; renewable energy is a win-win product. It's good for the environment and good for the economy. Eric Bowman is the Coop Development Specialist with the Northwest Cooperative Development Center and he sees the present as the spike for renewable projects. BOWMAN: I think there's a lot of opportunities right now that aren't going to be here in 5 to 10 years. The infrastructure is getting laid out now and policy decisions are being made and we've always seen energy as place where there's going to be opportunity. Bowman talks about the upside of the various renewable projects. BOWMAN: I think the big plus is that these are going to be distributed resources. Wind isn't near consumers in the city its in ridge tops, down in the Gorge. It's in different places and different communities have I think different access to different resources whether it's clusters of dairy farmers that are having manure issues where there's potential for putting in an anaerobic digester. I think the real magic come in we are almost re-imagining our energy infrastructure right now. There stands to be a profit made when it comes to these projects but Bowman says the coop ownership has greater benefits. BOWMAN: For example there was a study done by John Urbanchuck in 2002, I think the National Corn Growers commissioned it and he looked at a single 50-million gallon per year ethanol facility. First that was coop owned, second that was investor owned and he found that there was a 56% greater impact on the local economy, on household income level, on the state taxes that were being paid. It's an enormous differential. But according to Bowman, there may be some downsides. BOWMAN: In many ways biofuel is experiencing a backlash right now because it's a new player at the table and I think that there's all sorts of pressures on commodity markets whether it's drought in bread baskets or increased energy costs and people are realizing suddenly that the genie is out of the bottle and farmers are making record profits. They don't mind but it's a new variable in a complex equation. For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. www.harvestcleanenergy.org