11/28/08 Being a Part of Clean Energy

Being a Part of Clean Energy. I'm Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report. This year's Harvesting Clean Energy Conference will be hosted in the Big Sky state of Montana and Webb Brown, President of the Montana Chamber of Commerce says there are plenty of opportunities in the state. BROWN: We actually have gotten involved this year because we can see definitely the need for additional energy sources. It's a lot of conversation about alternative energy and like I say we always consider the need for additional energy. And there are some tremendous opportunities throughout Montana as well. It's an open space state and a rural ag economy. There are some things we think can be done to improve Montana's position and certainly the Northwest as a whole too in the energy picture. Brown is part of the planning committee for the conference and he feels it's important for the state to be involved. BROWN: We did an energy program last year that talked about some of the impacts of climate change and the discussion on legislation to address that and I think that kind of led naturally to this discussion about what can we do to develop the other sources that may be overlooked or certainly underdeveloped and advance them to a greater extent. It is interesting to see how some states have embraced clean energy and Brown says it's a natural for Montana. BROWN: We're a rural economy and an ag based economy and people are somewhat more traditional here so I think it is a little bit of an element of thinking outside the box and yet we're definitely started down that road in the last decade or so. Montana has been one that embraced the wind-power as an alternative. We're also looking at something that kind of blends between the traditional and the new; the biomass. The development of energy sources from the land just as we have been developing food sources, the beef and the wheat, now there are some alternatives to look there that will also contribute towards the energy picture and it's not a huge change for people that are already working the land. The Conference is January 25-27, 2009 in Billings, MT. For additional information on clean energy and the upcoming Harvesting Clean Energy conference, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network. For more information about the upcoming 9th annual Harvesting Clean Energy conference visit www.harvestcleanenergy.org/conference. The Conference is January 25-27, 2009 in Billings, MT.