DBLJ’s Recent Comments

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  Lee Lynd

  I have had the pleasure of hearing Lee speak on a couple of occasions and it is always inspirational.  

  the argument made by Harkin is bogus, while it does take some time (approximatley 2-3 years) for perennial plants to come into full production; corn stover, and expiring CRP acres are readily available to fill in the gap TEMPORARILY (for stover)

  The enzyme approach (sugar platform) is always touted as the way to proceed for cellulosic ethanol, and agian in this article it is protrayed as a "bonus" but I am not as convinced.  

  The feeling I get is that the companies that are doing the R & D of anzymes to break down the cellulosic material are in some way connected to the seed industry so that they can also design crops that work particularly well with thier enzyme thus having 2 revenue streams: selling enzymes to the processing facility and selling seeds to the farmers.  Ideally the process would be feedstock neutral.

  At any rate we NEED cellulosic fuels; for many reasons but none as importnat as the potential benefits that could be seen in the agricultural industry.On A nice newsweekly cover story on ethanol posted 2 years, 9 months ago 5 Responses

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  HTML

  Well apparently my foray into using HTML tags didn't work.  Perhaps I should have taken a computer programming class at the ISU?!?On Venture capitalist says cellulosic rules posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

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  My 2 cents

  
  Thank you Julia, it is nice to see another smart Iowa Stater that has not been indoctrinated by the "industrial farming lobby" that basically built ISU.....

  On to more pressing issues.  Whatever the reasons behind the investment Mr. Kholsa has put into cellulosic ethanol I commend him for doing so.  However I am a little concerned with some of the numbers given

  <blockqoute> $40 per ton biomass is very feasible even at single digit yields in acres per ton of miscanthus or switchgrass (or hopefully diverse grass cocktails) without any significant irrigation or fertilizer. And corn farmers will make more money using these grasses if they can get about $200 per acre. And so far little genetic engineering has been applied to these crops because there hasn't been much reason to do it. In fact, I have seen private companies in with yields north of 20 dry tons per acre using only traditional plant breeding techniques. I personally don't have a problem with genetic engineering but we don't need it to achieve these yields. I suspect 6-8 tons per acre will make cellulosic ethanol competitive even if oil prices decline, because of the much lower level of farm inputs required compared to corn/soy. </blockqoute>

  This simply is not my experience.  I have worked for several years on finding new markets for prairie grasses and other perennial crops and the largest bottleneck we come to is that boimass is by its very nature dispersed, requiring large amounts of energy to accomplish the tasks of harvesting, transporting, processing, etc.   and for what?..... to make fuel.  The price the energy facility wants to pay to the farmer does not come close to what he/she needs to compare economically to corn/soybeans. As to the figure of $200 per acre return with perennial grasses..... consider cash rent in my neck of the woods is $150-$190 acre I know of one large farmer that just paid $220 per acre, up front, to rent some farm ground.  Why has the rent price for good farmland gone up so much in the last 5-6 years?  In part because of the subsidies paid to corn/soybean growers.  it is vicious cycle.        

      On Venture capitalist says cellulosic rules posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

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  Amen on cuttin the subsidies

  Not only are the subsidies (in the current form) a waste of taxpayer money but they act as a barrier in getting other crops on the landscape.  Any crop a farmer wants to grow has to perform equal to or better than the alternative, corn/soybeansOn Let's wonk it out posted 2 years, 10 months ago 28 Responses

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  couple of more things

  Oh did I mention that by transitioning to more perennials on the landscape it reduces the trips across the field thus burning less fuel.  It also reduces tillage by about 75% which is a contributor to global warming, and could greatly improve the financial outlook for our family farmers.   On Let's wonk it out posted 2 years, 10 months ago 28 Responses