A Conversation with US Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

(Industrial Biotechnology) ... My current assessment is that there exists an unlimited sense of opportunity in the biobased products and bioenergy sector. I look at the work being done at the USDA, which is extensive and has been helpful in getting the word out about this industry. We prepared a report not long ago that suggested this is a $369 billion industry responsible for employing 4 million people. I think we are just beginning to appreciate the potential of being able to take biomass and convert it into virtually anything an economy needs, from energy and fuel to chemicals and materials.

The challenge is that we are obviously a new and emerging approach to the existing economy of energy and fuel production, and when you are the “new kid on the block” you are going to be challenged by the “old kid on the block.” I think we have seen that, in particular by the oil industry and its efforts to derail and dismantle some of the policy initiatives that have helped advance the biofuels area–especially the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS). That is reflective of what happens when you challenge the status quo and propose something different.

In this Administration, we have utilized all of the 90003 money under the 2008 Farm Bill, and we have encouraged Congress to continue funding that loan guarantee program for biobased fuel production. We have asked Congress specifically and explicitly to extend the reach of 90003 to extend biobased chemical production. We saw an opportunity to expand a program that had been popular; essentially, we provided conditional loans on 11 projects and closed three projects.

We have made 81 separate biobased agricultural investments in rural America using our Business and Industry Guaranteed Loan Program. I have instructed our rural development team to report back to me on an annual basis on the number of investments made in biobased processing and production. Eighty-one investments have been made. We have established five biomass centers, which are essentially research centers that look at a wide variety of issues related to what feedstocks work best and how you can more efficiently and effectively use feedstocks in processing. We have invested $320 million in research within these centers and around the land-grant university system on supply chain challenges and issues related to the biobased agricultural economy. We have invested $286 million in over 300 companies that are in the business of helping the advanced biofuels industry. We have funded 480,000 acres of non-food feedstocks to be used in biofuel production, helping farmers and producers develop new products and deferring the expenses associated with making the transition.

We have established a first-ever effort between the Department of the Navy, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Agriculture to construct and fund pilot-sized processing facilities that use non-food feedstock to produce drop-in aviation fuel—not blended fuel, but drop-in fuel. The Navy has guaranteed the purchase of those drop-in aviation fuels, and we, the Departments of Navy, Energy, and Agriculture, are providing assistance to the tune of half a billion dollars to get that industry off the ground.

We have established the Farm-to-Fly program, working with the commercial aviation industry to help promote the sale of a billion gallons of this blended fuel, starting with purchases the Navy will be making later this year. We also established the Biogas Roadmap to figure out how we can more effectively utilize biogases. As part of this effort we have funded and assisted 110 anaerobic digesters. We recently provided $100 million to 21 states, which has been matched by commitments of $120 million in value, to expand the number of facilities that can sell higher blends of biofuel. This is the Biofuel Infrastructure Partnership, or blender pump initiative.

I think a prime example is the work we've been doing in the State of Washington, with the University of Washington and Washington State University. That is an area of the country that is committed to commercial aviation; it has a lot of investments in companies that make airplanes and it has a lot of biomass potential. We have invested nearly $80 million in these two universities to support collaborations in which they are working with other universities to look at how the woody biomass that is available in the region can be converted into the biofuels that commercial aviation interests can use.

That is an example of the kind of collaboration our National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) identified as a priority research area–encompassing the biomass, biobased products, and biofuels industry. The way in which those grants are made rewards collaboration between the universities. We are also working to ensure that minority-serving institutions that have students doing good work and professors who are noted in their fields are also included and involved in this process, so we promote diversity.

I alluded earlier to the drop-in aviation fuel efforts of the Navy. This is a huge opportunity, both on the commercial aviation side in and terms of the Navy, the Department of Defense. They want half of their fuel in the next 15 years, and half of their energy needs, to be biobased. Half–that is a tremendous market opportunity.

Previously, I also mentioned export opportunities, and when you think of the expanding populations in India and China alone, and the air quality issues they are confronting, the ability to have clean-burning, biobased fuel that is much better for the air represents a tremendous export opportunity. That will spur creativity and innovation all over the world. READ MORE and MORE (Royal Society of Chemistry/Advanced Biofuels USA)