Utilizing Feedstock for Energy & Income

Utilizing Feedstock for Energy & Income. I’m Greg Martin as Line On Agriculture presents the Harvest Clean Energy Report.

Many ag producers are finding out that they can create a new income stream with the use of feedstocks. Feedstock come in many forms and getting the most of them is what Chris Wright, Sr. Research Engineer for Biofuels & Renewable Energy at the Idaho National Laboratory is working on.

WRIGHT: The INL is the lead feedstock laboratory for the Department of Energy and what that means is that we are the ones primarily looking at the research for taking the material that’s grown in the field or in the forest and moving it through a system and delivering it to a refinery that turns it into a finished product.

Wright says it is important to know how to remove the feedstock from the land.

WRIGHT: Some of the other things we do besides trying to make this cost effective and economical so a system can be put together and people will invest in it, we’re also trying to make sure that we’re not mining the soils or the environment to the degree that it’s only good for one year and can’t do it anymore. It’s got to be some sort of sustainable year after year type of a system.

They are looking at the best use of materials to increase both productivity and price.

WRIGHT: And I think the benefits we’re trying to accomplish here or the benefits that could come from this certainly would be an influx of new money if you will into the ag sector because we’re talking about using materials that aren’t readily used today in a large sense. So ag residue, things that come from the grain, the plant itself after the grain is harvested or coming from the wood sector.

He is also careful about the use of the word waste since in the past it was completely discarded whereas now it can provide additional revenues for ag operations.

WRIGHT: If growers can tack a little bit of a profit on to that as they remove it in addition to their grain and sell it into a market then they get benefits and certainly the overall community and the nation gets benefits from having material s that can be used for fuels and chemicals or other end products.

One issue that has been brought to the table was infrastructure needs and Wright says that while there is innovation that need to occur in the farm machinery sector they are looking at ways to incorporate this new industry into existing infrastructure.

For additional information on clean energy, visit harvestcleanenergy.org. That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.  www.harvestcleanenergy.org