A View of Biofuels History in the US from the Mountains of Tennessee: An Interview with Genera Energy’s Dr. Sam Jackson (Part 1)

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November 06, 2014

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by Joanne Ivancic* (Advanced Biofuels USA) In January 2006, President George W. Bush said “switchgrass” in his State of the Union Address as he enthusiastically envisioned a renewable transportation fuels future.1 Within weeks, the price of switchgrass seed soared, along with the value of seed producers’ stock. The public believed in this vision and believed that it offered new economic opportunities.

Switchgrass field on Color Wheel Farm near Vonore, Tennessee

Dr. Sam Jackson, now Vice President of Business Development for Genera Energy in Vonore, Tennessee, watched these developments from a front row seat at the University of Tennessee’s Institute of Agriculture and has been working on innovations with switchgrass ever since. In a recent interview, he told the story:
“In December of 2005, you probably could have gone to any native grass seed producer and gotten Alamo switchgrass seed for about $5.00/lb. President Bush said the word “switchgrass” in the State of the Union Address in January 2006. Within two months, it was $15.00/lb. And at one point, I know some vendors were at $30.00/lb before it started to come back down.”
Anticipation of the next “green crude play” began to run rampant over the next few years. BP became “Beyond Petroleum” and Shell Oil was creating a mosaic vision of the transportation fuel future that included a myriad of green options.
Algae options gained ground, hyped as a non-food, non-cropland renewable oil source with California, New Mexico, Ohio and others sprouting algal biomass projects.

KL Energy cellulosic ethanol tested in American Le Mans Series races.

POET created Project Liberty to research and implement corn stover and corn cob options. Atlantic Biomass Conversions, at the suggestion of USDA staff, tried its new enzymatic process on sugar beet residues. KL Energy experimented with using pine beetle infested wood as a feedstock, ridding the environment of a pest while producing beneficial fuels. Iogen, making cellulosic ethanol in Ontario, Canada since 2004, received a $40 million investment from Goldman Sachs in 2006.
Tennessee Not Only Climbs on the Bandwagon, but Leads the Parade
Sam Jackson recalls in 2006 the forward-looking Governor Phil Bredesen coming to the Agriculture Department at the University of Tennessee and requesting a plan to move the state forward in bioenergy.
Jackson explains how Bredesen’s background influenced his vision. “Before he was mayor of Nashville and Governor of Tennessee, he made his personal fortune in the healthcare industry. He came out of private industry, so understood what it was like to build businesses from the ground up and to move them forward. He was also a Harvard-trained physicist. … So he advocated prepositioning the state in some of these different industrial areas. He understood that he had to be proactive in planning and looking forward for the state.”
“He was a science guy. He got the science,” continues Jackson, emphasizing the value of having political leadership steeped in the scientific community. “We were at the governor’s office the day that we announced the partnership with DuPont when I was still with the University and I have never seen a politician get excited about being interviewed by Chemical Weekly.”

In response to the governor’s request, Jackson explains, the Institute of Agriculture at the University put together a team to evaluate different options. On the team were experts in Agricultural Economics, Extension, Plant Science, Biochemistry/Chemistry Conversions, Forestry, Natural Sciences, Agricultural Sciences and Engineering.
“They looked at diesel, at biodiesel. They looked at oil seeds. They looked at a lot of different things. And what it came down to was Tennessee can grow biomass. This is what we can do really, really well. We can grow this biomass crop. And so they started putting together this formulation of (what)we can do (for)a biomass production program, a supply chain and work with an external partner to build one of the first cellulosic ethanol biorefineries in the country.”

University of Tennessee Center for Renewable Carbon

They put together, he remembered, a seventy and a half million dollar budget for the entire program which included research and development at the University and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a switchgrass incentive program, a biorefinery development program “and all things in between.”
“Within about 60 - 90 days, the legislature had approved it and released it. It was the single largest appropriation the university had ever gotten like that. And it was done incredibly quickly.”
Jackson reflected on how this was possible. “At the time it was pre-recession. The state had a budget surplus. Things were good. All the stars were aligned. The governor was popular. His party was in control of the state house and so it was relatively good with a good program to push through.
“I do have to say that the Tennessee Farm Bureau was extremely supportive and in this state for agriculture programs, it is critical to have the Farm Bureau on board.” Tennessee has the largest Farm Bureau membership in the nation, he explained, so it plays the role the National Farmers Union and the Grange and other organizations play in other parts of the country, such as the Midwest or upper Midwest. “Had it been more of a forestry oriented thing you may have had the Forest Landowners Association, National Forest Owners Association, those kinds of folks,” Jackson pointed out. “Any of those are important to get involved if they fit the project and the location.”
Acknowledging its importance, the governor announced the program at the annual Farm Bureau meeting in Tennessee in December 2006. The first acres were planted in 20008.
Jackson put the broad applications of the program developed in 2006 in perspective, “If you look at the two parts of the program, the biomass production, supply chain, all of that effort; that really applies to any biomass user. Whether its biofuels, biopower, bioproducts, whatever. … There was a significant component, about half of the funding, that went toward the building of the demonstration scale biorefinery. And that piece, yes, was very focused on cellulosic ethanol. But the biomass component, the biomass learnings and understanding, they go all the way through to any industry.”
Specifics of the Tennessee Switchgrass Program
“We started recruiting farmers in 2007. Extension led that. We had group meetings, educated about process, contracts, … and they had to apply to become part of the program.
“In 2008, we planted 723 acres. Had about 1500 acres apply. We were limited by seed availability.

Brad Black at the family century farm, one of the first chosen as part of the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative.

“We were looking for a broad array of things. We were looking for a diverse set of farmer experiences. So at one end of the spectrum you would have Brad and Kim Black as an example, very good farmers, professional farmers, probably the best farmers I’ve ever met in terms of understanding operations…
“They are so management oriented. They understand their farm costs. They understand the full spectrum of things that you would look for. … When you at their farm operation and you look at the corn and the soybeans and the beef cattle and the solar and the switchgrass… “They’ve done canola; they’ve done everything out there. It’s really impressive. That farm’s been in their family since 1820 and it’s such an impressive operation.
“So, you have those kind on the one end of the spectrum and (on the other end of the spectrum) we had a 20 something year old young man who had never farmed before, but wanted to learn and wanted to do it and he had some land. And so we looked at a broad array of farm experiences. Full time farmers, part-time farmers, those kinds of things.”
Jackson also explained why diversity of people and farm land was important; and how the program was structured to get the most and best out of those diverse individuals and farms.
“Because we felt we had to be realistic with what a commercial operation would be like. So when you look at a commercial scale biorefinery, that may need 30-40,000 acres to operate, you are going to have a broad array of farmers and landowner types, so we wanted to get that experience here. We were in a unique situation where Extension appointed two full time extension specialists to deal only with the switchgrass farmers. That’s all they did. They helped with planting, management, and everything.

Former switchgrass test plot land returned to pasture.

“You know, that helps you be very, very successful. So we were in a unique situation where we had all of that support and so having that broad array of farmers was a real learning experience. We learned a tremendous amount from that of where the strengths were, where the weaknesses were and how you can best manage that on a commercial supply chain.
“We (also) wanted things to be geographically distributed in different soil types, different counties, different areas. We wanted to make sure the land was suitable. Was it too steep or did it have other considerations; and we wanted a diverse array of that. So, some of our switchgrass stands were planted right into fescue pasture; whereas some were planted in land that had been in soybeans for 10 years and probably needed a really good rest at that point. So we had a really diverse array of things.”
To assure the right mix of people, places and soil conditions, applicants went through an evaluation process. After reviewing written applications, program staff visited each of the preselected farmers. The first 16 participants were chosen by committee to be a part of the program.
In 2009 about 2000 acres and 34 more farmers entered the program. By 2010, just over 5100 acres of switchgrass was growing on 61 individual properties. Jackson considered this a success, attributable to the tremendous amount of work done by Extension agents, Ken Goddard and Jon Walton.
And the Biorefinery Program
On the biorefinery side, construction started in 2008. They made the first cellulosic ethanol in Vonore, Tennessee by Christmas 2009 and had the grand opening in January of 2010.

Demonstration Biorefinery building operated by DuPont Cellulosic Ethanol

After initially negotiating with Mascoma as a partner on the conversion technology piece of the program, they failed to come to an agreement, and in the summer of 2008, DuPont became the conversion partner.
This experience highlighted the challenges of trying to develop a business within a university structure.
Jackson explains, “Universities are good at what they do. Research, teaching, outreach. They are not very good at dealing with outside corporate IP and legal partnership issues and all of those kinds of business world structures. So what became apparent pretty quickly was that we needed some other type of entity that could act on the university’s behalf to facilitate that industrial partnership side of things, so Genera Energy was born as an LLC in 2008 with Kelly Tiller as the CEO of Genera to lead that effort. It was formed under UT Research Foundation which is officially separate from the university and operates as a nonprofit 501(c)3 so they can hold subsidiaries, for profits and all that. So the LLC was formed and that company was then used to manage the biorefinery construction, the partnerships with DuPont and all of that. It was much more streamlined, much more effective and much more efficient. We would never have gotten there if we had to stay within the framework that the university was set up in. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just wasn’t designed to do this other purpose.”

14 0914 Tennessee Genera Energy Biomass Innovation Park

Jackson joined Genera Energy in 2009, working part-time on the demonstration scale biorefinery construction and research facility development.
As is typical in the biofuels/biomaterials industry, companies keep research strategies and results close to the vest; they avoid giving away the “recipe” in patent applications as much as possible; publication of research in professional journals is not a priority and they protect proprietary information from public disclosure. This presents a different culture to university-based participants.
Thus, those working with DuPont could not talk a lot about the details, a challenge for faculty and staff dealing with an industrial technology partner with business interests in licensing the technology. And an annoyance to media, competitors and investment researchers.
As Jackson says, “It was very quiet.” However, in less than 18 months, with 300 construction workers on site at a time, they constructed a 75,000 square foot biorefinery/research building.
Genera continued to grow. They worked with the farmer contracts as well as with the biorefinery, performing a lot of work on the biomass supply chain side, improving farm operations, management, and logistics.
DuPont Cellulosic Ethanol is using what DuPont learned at the Vonore demonstration and research facility at a corn stover fed biorefinery expected to reach commercial scale soon in Nevada, Iowa.
As DuPont describes it on their web site, “Since 2008, our demonstration-scale operating facility in Vonore, Tennessee has been generating the data necessary to finalize the integrated scale-up technology for commercial production, including:

Confirmed economics of biomass delivery with 2011 field stover harvest data
Engineering and front-end loading underway for Iowa site
Deployment strategy which includes commercial operations, licensing model and merchant enzymes”

Dr. Sam Jackson, vice president of business development at Genera Energy

Jackson elaborates on the first point, “What we recognize is that for the economics to work in these early facilities in particular, the supply chain has to be very heavily centrally managed. It has to be actively managed to gain the efficiencies in equipment and scheduling and quality and all these other things that you need to do to be successful. Because, if you don’t, because these early plants are so thinly margined, a shift in the wrong direction could really impact things dramatically. And so we believe that what we do from a centralized management standpoint gains the efficiency and builds the value.”
However, with DuPont’s focus on Iowa, hopes and expectations for a full-scale commercial switchgrass-fed biorefinery in Tennessee were dashed. Or at least put on hold for the moment.
Some participating farmers had made significant financial investments expecting this to become not just a field experiment, but the start of something big. “Disappointment” doesn’t adequately describe their feelings. With all involved riding a wave of excitement, managing expectations or reinforcing an understanding of the academic and experimental nature of the project was not an entire success.
Jackson reflected on this dynamic. “I think we all entered into this thinking it was going to go much more quickly than it has. I think the whole industry (did). And I think that hurt us. I don’t think you would do it again differently because it’s just how it goes.
“And that the economy was going to tank and slow investment… There are so many things that happened.
“So I think that there were probably some unreasonable expectations, but I think the bigger issue is just the slowness of the development of the industry. It’s different when it’s the University’s program or Genera controls it, but when you start moving to commercial scale and you are talking about a $250 million investment in a commercial facility, that’s not being driven by the University. The University and the program and Genera, we can facilitate a lot on the feedstock side, but there’s still a huge technical investment there that’s difficult to procure and to overcome. We’re still pushing forward on that. I still firmly believe that we will have a commercial facility here in Tennessee and that will be the big win of the initiative.
“I think everything else was successful. And I think that the length of time that the industry has taken here and everywhere to develop was not what was expected. I’m not sure that any of us could have done anything any differently to accelerate it. I just think there were so many things that aligned that slowed it down. The economy is a huge one, the government’s another one.
“It’s not done yet. We’re still here. There are a ton of people in this country and everybody in this building and the folks in the University that get up every morning thinking about how this is going to be successful and how we can work to make it successful and how can we continue to push.
“I’ve learned a lot about perseverance in the last five or six years. But it’s not done yet. We’re going to get there. It’s just taking time. So, that’s the first thing I’d say.
“Don’t close the door, don’t close the book because we’re still writing it.
“The other thing I think I would say. We have learned lessons from this about the pace of development and things like that …, but I think that the real value in what we’ve done is that we have developed an incredibly new and unique model for transferring knowledge and skills out of the university into the commercial environment. It was a model that had not been done before. And has proved very viable and I think we’ll see that in a host of technologies.”

1 “We will also fund additional research in cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips and stalks or switch grass. Our goal is to make this new kind of ethanol practical and competitive within six years.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/31/AR2006013101468.html
All photos by J. Ivancic except Dr. Sam Jackson provided by Genera Energy
*Joanne Ivancic, serves as Executive Director of Advanced Biofuels USA. She also served as a lobbyist promoting advanced biofuels research and production on Capitol Hill and with executive agencies. She has observed the development of advanced biofuels’ research and financing for more than fifteen years. From 2010 to 2013 she was voted one of the Top 100 People in Bioenergy by Biofuels Digest readers and editors.

More on University of Tennessee and Genera’s work after the Tennessee Biofuels Initiative in Part 2 of this interview with Dr. Sam Jackson.
This article is part of a series of articles looking behind the scenes at the people, places and projects that contribute pieces of the story of the development of advanced biofuels and the bio-based economy in the early 21st century.