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With the rural Midwest sitting on half of the nation’s 1 billion tons of surplus, low-cost biomass on its croplands, pasturelands and forests, could we be the future energy producer that powers America’s cars and trucks?
And what would the Midwest rural economy look like if more than $1 billion a day, now spent on imported petroleum, starts flowing here?
Those were the questions posed recently by the Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit, a gathering of more than 140 agriculture, energy and rural development experts who met in Madison to look at the Midwest — and America’s — “bioenergy” future.
Bioenergy offers enormous benefits. On an energy unit basis, biomass is cheaper than a barrel of crude oil. Bioenergy is relatively “carbon neutral,” releasing the same amount of carbon that it absorbs as growing plants. Finally, converting biomass into fuel means the money stays home, not exported to foreign countries, many of which do not have U.S. interests at heart.
“Bioenergy” is excellent energy security policy, sound foreign policy and solid environmental policy. Most importantly, it is excellent economic policy. And if we do this right, it could fundamentally alter the economy of the Midwest.
To do this “right,” however, we need to ask tough questions of ourselves. There will be plenty of pain and many setbacks. Businesses and lives will be dislocated. The price of farm land could rise. Who wins? Who loses?
That’s important because local ownership of biofuel production provides a fifth more local economic impact than absentee ownership. Local entrepreneurs also move faster and innovate more quickly than corporate investors. So how can we help ensure local entrepreneurs have a role in our energy future? We don’t want to do all this “just to create a footprint for Exxon,” Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Secretary Rod Nilsestuen told the crowd.
Other questions loom just as large. What amount of biomass can we safely remove from the land? (Contrary to some criticisms, we won’t level our forests.
The whole idea is to produce energy that is sustainable.) Who regulates it to make
sure? Can bioenergy compete with oil whose price is controlled by a dictator-dominated cartel?
These aren’t easy questions. Nor are there easy answers. But if we’ve learned one thing in the past few years, it is markets are good at setting price and allocating supply. But they’re lousy at planning. We have to plan for our energy future, which means using energy more efficiently and developing new energy sources.
Biofuels are only one answer. But they’re already playing a role. Iowa produced 2 billion gallons of ethanol alcohol from corn last year, a new industry that is now nearly 7 percent of the state’s total economic activity. Wisconsin produces a fourth of that, but we’re expanding.
Wisconsin is also the epicenter of a new generation of research to turn plant matter into ethanol alcohol fuel. If our new Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center on the UW-Madison campus is successful, we could double President Bush’s goal of 36 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022. If we get serious about using energy more efficiently, America could come close to energy independence.
We don’t know what our “bioenergy” future will look like. But we do know change is upon us. For a century, we’ve relied on fossil fuels to move people and power factories. As those fuels increase in price and load the atmosphere with carbon, we need solutions.
The Midwest lies in the heart of those solutions. The Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit was created to ask the tough questions — and start us thinking about the right answers.
Gary Radloff, a former Tribune reporter, is chairman of this year’s Midwest Ag Energy Network Summit and is policy director for the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.
