Advanced BioFuels USA

by : Richard J. Brenner, Wes Jurey and Todd Campbell (Agricultural Technology Innovation Partnership)  Introduction. The ATIP Foundation (Agricultural Technology Innovation Partnership) conducts projects in multi-county regions of 3 states to “advance the rural bioeconomy,” using a replicable model we developed based on the industry-cluster model of Michael Porter at Harvard University in the 1980s & augmented by input gleaned from our 8 national forums in 2016–2017, in partnership with the Biomass Research & Development (BR&D) Board, co-chaired by the US Departments of Agriculture & Energy.

Objective. The principal goal of each project is to develop — for use by the regional economic development corporations (EDCs) a key tool for recruiting bioconversion technology companies: a geospatial inventory of biomass (wastes) that could be repurposed for bioenergy production and/or creation of valuable co-products. These inventories answer the industry-relevant questions of “what kind of biomass, how much is there, & exactly where is it located”.

Materials & Methods. In each project, we engage local, regional and state leaders from six sectors as primary stakeholders. All vital to the success of our Initiatives, they are (1) economic and workforce development; (2) academia; (3) municipal, county, regional & state elected / appointed officials; (4) financial services; (5) business and industry; and (6) the supply chain, from biomass feedstock to end users of goods and services. We created geospatial “layers” of biomass inventories (ArcGIS Pro, ESRI corporation) to include both publicly available data, as well as proprietary information from collaborators. Georeferenced animal production facilities & numbers were obtained from permitting authorities (CA Waterboards; TX Commission on Environmental Quality; OH Dept. of Ag.; OH Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); excess food (wastes) estimates were provided by U.S. EPA; municipal wastes and sewage sludge were provided by respective state permitting authorities. Animal waste calculations were made with our specific algorithms to compute tons per farm per day by animal type at 90% moisture (derived from USDA NRCS Part 651 “Agricultural Waste Management Field Handbook, Chpt. 4”). Additionally, we created geospatial inventories of service providers who could support the bioeconomy in each region.

Results. See the following representative seven figures of ArcGIS screenshots of inventories. READ MORE

“Advancing the Bioeconomy” – Deploying A Replicable, Scalable Model for Rural Economic Development in CA (eight central valley counties), OH (nine northwest counties), and TX (four north central counties) (2019-2020) (Agricultural Technology Innovation Partnership)