Tag: subsidies

Farm Technology Harvests Trendy Subsidies

  • Ethanol often is made from corn, and one of the by-products, distillers grains, can be eaten by cows (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduce air pollution; provide a market for farm goods; create scores of jobs… all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamara Keith
reports:

Transcript

It’s rare when a factory and a mega-farm can help reduce pollution. But a project planned in the Midwest promises just that. The project would produce a fuel additive that is thought to reduces air pollution, provide a market for farm goods, create scores of jobs – all while not harming the environment. The Ohio project is getting millions of dollars of help from the state and federal governments. But some people doubt the project will accomplish all it promises. Tamara Keith reports:


The project is called Harrison Ethanol. It will include an ethanol factory, using millions of bushels of corn to produce the gasoline additive. At the same location, thousands of dairy and beef cattle will live in fully enclosed barns. And then there’s the small power plant, which will be fueled by manure produced by the cattle. Wendel Dreve is the project’s director.


“I think the nicest way of describing our project is it’s a vertically-integrated, agriculturally-based industrial development.”


Dreve began working on the project nearly 4 years ago. He’s retired from the oil and gas industry and built a home in eastern Ohio farm country. His neighbors approached him about starting up a corn-powered ethanol factory – something that has not existed in Ohio in a decade.


“I told them that I didn’t think we could build a ethanol plant in Ohio because there are no state subsidies, so we had to figure out a way to raise the revenue streams internally and the only way we could figure out to do that was to employ animals.”


The 12-thousand cattle housed on site, will eat the main byproduct of ethanol production, a corn mush called distillers grains. The cattle will generate money too, from sales of milk and meat. But the cattle will create manure… lots of manure… about 50 million gallons of it a year. Dreve has a solution for that, too: a power-generating anaerobic digester.


“It eliminates nearly all of the odor, it processes all of the wastes from the entire facility. So it’s like an industrial waste treatment plant on site.”


60 times a day, manure will be flushed out of the animal barns and into the digester. A large, cement structure, where the manure is broken down by microbes.


“And at the other end, you get water and methane and carbon dioxide and some solids.”


The methane will run power generators, creating “green energy,” which can be sold at a premium. The carbon dioxide from the manure will be sold to make carbonated sodas. This would be the first anaerobic digester powered by cattle manure in Ohio, and one of only a handful nationwide. Dreve says his digester will be much better for the environment than open-air manure lagoons, the cheaper method most commonly used by farmers.


But not everyone agrees. Bill Weida is an economist and director of the Grace Factory Farm Project which opposes large concentrated animal farms. Weida says most anaerobic digesters are paid for with some kind of government assistance. Harrison Ethanol is no exception. The project received a 500-thousand-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help pay for the digester.


“No one in their right mind who is looking for an economic investment would build a digester. The only reason you’d build one is if you had some sort of a government subsidy that would help pay for it.”


Harrison Ethanol also is receiving seventy-million dollars in financing assistance from the state of Ohio. In fact, the company indicates it got some very good legal and accounting help, to find the perfect location for the project to take advantage of state and federal tax credits. Add to that federal ethanol subsidies and federal subsidies for corn production, and Harrison Ethanol is getting plenty of help from taxpayers.


Ken Cook is executive director of the Environmental Working Group. He says ethanol might reduce air pollution and reliance on foreign oil, but it is not economically viable without those huge taxpayer subsidies.


“The worry is that what we’re really doing is bailing out failed agriculture policy with heavily subsidized energy policy. We’re going into the corn industry with another set of subsidies to basically turn corn, that would have been exported at a loss, into corn that is used to make fuel at a loss to taxpayers.”


That’s not how state officials see it. Bill Teets is a spokesman for the Department of Development which has been working to bring several ethanol plants to Ohio.


“We think that this is a great project because you help farmers, you create manufacturing, you have something that helps benefit the environment and it seems to be a good type of project that we can really benefit from.”


And if everything goes as planned, Wendel Dreve will build 2 more ethanol and cattle operations in Ohio. He’s already secured tax dollars from state and federal sources for those plants.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamara Keith.

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Lack of Investment in Renewables to Hurt Businesses?

  • Mike LeBeau installs solar and wind energy systems. He has put in more generators this year than in the last 10 years combined, thanks to rebate programs offered by the state and local governments. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in
Argentina to work out the next steps in dealing with climate change.
Seven years ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions
and greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now, a report from the National Environmental Trust says that decision
is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Stephanie Hemphill reports:

Transcript

Representatives of nearly 200 countries recently met in Argentina to
work out the next steps in dealing with climate change. Seven years
ago, many nations agreed to reduce fossil fuel emissions and
greenhouse gases. The U.S. didn’t agree to reduce its emissions.
Now a report from the National Environmental Trust says that
decision is hurting American businesses. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill reports:


Mike LeBeau installs wind generators and photovoltaic solar
collectors. His business, Conservation Technologies, is in Duluth,
Minnesota. In the U.S., there are not a lot of contractors doing this
kind of work.


“This is a two and a half kilowatt photovoltaic system.”


Two panels about the size of a dining room table stand on the top
floor of a downtown garage. The only other equipment is an inverter
– a metal box the size of a shoebox – that transforms the direct
current from the solar panels to the alternating current we use in our
homes.


“The electricity is produced here by the sun, fed into the wiring in the
building here, and any excess is distributed out onto the utility grid.”


The solar panels were made in Japan. And the inverter is from
Germany.


LeBeau has been installing systems like this for ten years. Demand
was slow until a year ago, when Minnesota started a rebate program.
LeBeau has put in more generators this year than in the last ten
years combined.


With another rebate offered by the local utility, LeBeau says the cost
of installing a typical system can be cut nearly in half.


And he says the increased activity has persuaded some of the
naysayers to help rather than hinder renewable energy projects.


“Now the electrical inspectors don’t have any choice – it’s being
supported by the utilities, and by the state of Minnesota, so it’s really
changed the atmosphere and the climate that we work in.”


But LeBeau says the state rebate program is a drop in the bucket
compared to what’s being done in other countries.


Christopher Reed agrees. He’s an engineer who advises individuals
and businesses on renewable energy projects. He says U.S. policy
has been piecemeal and erratic. For instance, there’s a federal tax
credit for renewable energy production. But it’s only in place for a
year or two at a time.


“When the incentive is out there, everybody ramps up as fast as they
can, and we slam projects in to meet the deadline before the credit
expires, and then everybody sits until the credit gets reintroduced
again. This has happened three times now.”


Reed says that discourages long-term investment.


Reed’s business is one of several American firms studied for the
report from the National Environmental Trust. The report says Japan
and most countries in Europe are providing major and consistent
incentives to encourage production of renewable energy. The report
says this approach is saving money, creating jobs, and putting
businesses in a position to export their new technologies and
expertise.


Reed says he’s frustrated to see European and Japanese companies
thrive, using American inventions such as photovoltaic, or PV,
technology, while American manufacturers fail.


“It’s almost embarrassing. The PV technology, that came out of Bell
Labs in the U.S. We should be the world leaders.”


But some observers say the worry is overblown. Darren McKinney is
a spokesman for the National Association of Manufacturers. He says
the U.S. has nothing to fear from German or Japanese businesses.
He says fossil fuels are doing a good job of stoking the American
economy.


“The fact of the matter is that wind and solar and biomass and
geothermal simply aren’t ready for prime time. If someone wants to
make an argument ‘well, they could be ready for prime time if they
received x-amount of tax cuts,’ I won’t necessarily argue against that
because I don’t know enough about the technologies. What I do
know is it would be cutting off our nose to spite our energy face if we
turn our backs on fossil fuels.”


Right now, oil and natural gas get the lion’s share of federal subsidies
in the U.S. Subsidies for renewable energy sources are very small in
comparison. As other countries shift to new technologies, American
companies could be left behind.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

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Divining Future of Fast Ferries

High-speed ferries have come to the Great Lakes. A ferry between Toronto and Rochester, New York, is scheduled to start this week – joining another ferry that started earlier this month between Milwaukee and Muskegon, Michigan. But transportation experts say it isn’t clear that the fast ferries will prosper. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

High-speed ferries have come to the Great Lakes. A ferry between Toronto, Canada,
and Rochester, New York, is scheduled to start this week, joining another ferry that
started this month between Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and Muskegon, Michigan. But
transportation experts say it isn’t clear that the fast ferries will prosper. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:


The privately owned Lake Express ferry between Milwaukee and Muskegon cuts across
Lake Michigan at nearly forty miles per hour. Four diesel engines drive high-powered
jets underneath the catamaran-style boat. The jets shoot huge plumes of water out the
back end of the nearly 200 foot-long vessel.


(sound of ferry)


It only takes two and half hours for the Lake Express to make a crossing, about half the
time of an older ferry that travels across northern Lake Michigan. A Milwaukee-based
passenger named Jack says the faster pace is what draws him to the new boat.


“This is quick… we’re all about being quick.”


The Lake Express also has room for 46 cars and smaller vehicles such as motorcycles. A
motorcycle passenger named Bobbie says using the ferry is a breeze, compared to driving
around Lake Michigan and fighting traffic in Chicago.


“Have you ever ridden a motorcycle and had a semi pull up behind you? I mean, it
seemed like he was that far away, maybe two feet, and it’s very frightening and it’s
happened to us several times.”


Some people who study ferries say less stress and time savings are just two of the appeals
of the boats. University of Delaware professor James Corbett says fast ferries have a
certain cachet for the upscale, leisure tourist.


“Fast ferries are very, very attractive first choices when people are considering new
routes… they look for the latest and greatest vessel designs.”


But Corbett says the ferries have several drawbacks. For one thing, the faster boats use
more energy and that helps push up ticket prices. Adult roundtrip fares for the
Milwaukee to Muskegon route start at 85 dollars.


Sue McNeil heads the University of Illinois-Chicago Urban Transportation Center. She
says the fares may scare off repeat business in certain markets.


“Just what I know about travel patterns and where people go, the Rochester-Toronto
seems to make more sense than the Milwaukee to Michigan.”


Still, McNeil says she hopes all the ferries succeed, because they provide another
transportation option. Federal, state and local governments are buying into the concept,
by offering some subsidies to promote the boats and build docking terminals. Chicago
and Cleveland are also looking at adding the faster moving ferries.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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Enviros Say No Tax Money for Manure Digesters

More farms are trying to turn cow manure into electricity. But some people say the government should not be paying for the process. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck Quirmbach reports:

Transcript

More farms are trying to turn cow manure into electricity. But some people say the
government should not be paying for the process. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Chuck
Quirmbach reports:


The federal government recently gave 14 million dollars to six Great Lakes states for renewable
energy and energy efficiency projects. Some of the projects are manure digesters, which capture
the methane from large amounts of animal waste and turn the gas into
electricity.


But Bill Weida of the New York-based Grace Factory Farm Project says the digesters do little to
reduce odor and nutrient problems at large farms. He also says the amount of electricity produced
is relatively small for the expense.


“We are subsidizing a program, which is going to produce energy at a higher cost than other
alternatives would, for example wind.”


Weida says the manure digester technology should be forced to stand on its own economically. But
the U.S. Agriculture Department says it’ll continue to consider digester proposals.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Chuck Quirmbach.

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ROOM FOR CONSERVATION IN FARM BILL? (Part 1)

  • A combine harvests soybeans in Minnesota. Photo by Don Breneman.

Although it has been delayed by the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Congressional debate is still scheduled to begin this fall on legislation that will shape the nation’s farm policy for the next 5 to 10 years. Right now, the vast majority of subsidies go to farmers who grow commodity crops like corn and soybeans. That leaves out many small dairy and vegetable farmers throughout the Midwest. Environmentalists say a shift in farm program priorities would help those farmers and be a boon to the environment. In the first of a two-part series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Losure visits a place that’s considered to be a success story in the nation’s conservation reserve program:

Transcript

Although it has been delayed by the terrorist attacks of September 11th, Congressional debate is still scheduled to begin this fall on legislation that will shape the nation’s farm policy for the next 5 to 10 years. Right now, the vast majority of subsidies go to farmers who grow commodity crops like corn and soybeans. That leaves out many small dairy and vegetable farmers throughout the Midwest. Environmentalists say a shift in farm program priorities would help those farmers and be a boon to the environment. In the first of a two-part
series, the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Losure visits a place that’s considered to be a success story in the nation’s conservation reserve program:


When cattle buyer Del Wehrspann was growing up on an Iowa farm in the 1950’s and 60’s, he saw the floodplain of the Des Moines River plowed up and planted in crops. Wehrspann is a lifelong conservationist and avid fisherman. He watched, dismayed, as the rivers fish and wildlife languished. So in 1968 he moved north to the Minnesota River valley, where the bottomland was still unplowed.


“But then we lived here not very long and I seen the exact same things taking place that had taken place in Iowa for me when I was a boy. That was draining every last wetland, tearing out every last fence, plowing everything that could be plowed for agricultural production.”


But these days as Wehrspann drives along the Minnesota River, he sees something he never expected in his lifetime – the river’s bottomland is being restored. It’s happening because Wehrspann and other citizens in the valley helped convince the state and federal government to begin what’s known as the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program. The program pays farmers an annual fee to take environmentally sensitive land out of cultivation. Now cattails, willows, and young cottonwoods grow on bottomland that just a few years ago was rows of corn and soybeans.


(sound of pontoon boat)


Already, Wehrspann has noticed changes on the river, where he often fishes from his pontoon boat. This spring when he floated past a field his neighbor has restored to a cattail marsh, the water running into the river was clear, not muddy with soil washing off a plowed field.


“This spring, the walleyes, they spawned. There was quite a few of them, the fish were here, nice fish. And for years, the Department of Natural Resources told us that we couldn’t have production, natural walleye production in this area because the water was too dirty.”


(Wahlspann putters downstream, past wood ducks, great blue herons,
Kingfishers, a black crowned night heron, and a soaring bald eagle.)


At a bend in the river, he beaches the boat and walks through land that was once diked and drained and is now a wetland. The mud is littered with freshwater mussel shells and crisscrossed with animal tracks.


“Like I say, this land is in production. It may not be in agricultural production, but as far as the deer, the other wildlife, the water quality, the aesthetics, it’s producing something. (Killdeer cry) that’s a killdeer.”


Under conservation programs similar to the one in the Minnesota River Valley, farmers nationwide have retired more than 33 million acres of environmentally sensitive land since 1985.


A farm bill amendment sponsored by Representatives Ron Kind of Wisconsin, Sherry Boehlert of New York and others would substantially increase spending for such programs to more than one quarter of the farm bill’s budget.


It’s not clear how well such proposals will fare…. but Tim Searchinger, senior attorney for the Washington DC based Environmental Defense, believes the time is right for a shift.


“It’s become increasingly obvious to people that these traditional farm programs leave out a large number of farmers. Nationwide, two-thirds of all the farmers don’t get any farm payments, and of the payments that are provided, two-thirds goes to the top largest ten percent.”


Searchinger says members of Congress from states like Wisconsin and New York where farmers receive relatively little in farm subsidies are starting to wake up to the inequities – especially as farm bill spending balloons.


He says congressmen from those states are increasingly supporting conservation programs. And in a recent boost for conservationists, a new report by the Bush administration proposes a similar shift from transitional subsidies to conservation programs.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Losure.

Is Big Money Driving Ethanol Subsidies?

For decades, big political donations have influenced big tax breaks. Lobbyists, backed by money from political action committees, heavily influence the legislative process. In one case a multi-billion dollar program is supposed to help the environment. But… many believe it doesn’t. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Peter Raven-Accounting for Bio-Diversity

Time Magazine recently profiled people it considered to be "Heroes of the
Planet" for their environmental work. Among them was the Director of the
Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter Raven. Raven works with groups in
developing nations to help them preserve the biological diversity of their
countries. In the final of a series of interviews… the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Lester Graham talked to Raven about his work… and how it
balances with domestic efforts to preserve natural areas:

Commentary – Recycling at Risk

In recent months, the country’s solid waste companies have been engaged in what amounts to a battle of the giants. As corporations like USA Waste and Waste Management merge and gain power, small, independent waste haulers are being swallowed whole. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Gayle Miller believes the frenzy in the solid waste industry spells bad news for recycling: