Hazelnuts Crop of the Future?

  • John Munter grows hazelnuts on his farm in northern Minnesota. He says the bushes are better for the environment than corn or soybeans, and that hazelnuts could be an important food in a future of climate change. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

You might have tried hazelnut flavoring in your coffee. And we all know about the hazelnuts in European chocolate bars. Hazelnuts – or filberts – are traditionally grown in Turkey, Italy, and Oregon. Now, researchers are developing varieties that could thrive in more challenging climates, such as the Great Lakes region. A man in northern Minnesota is growing hazelnuts. It’s part of his attempt to live off the land. And he says hazelnuts are the perfect crop for a future of global climate change. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill visited his farm:

Transcript

You might have tried hazelnut flavoring in your coffee. And we all know about the hazelnuts in
European chocolate bars. Hazelnuts – or filberts – are traditionally grown in Turkey, Italy, and
Oregon. Now, researchers are developing varieties that could thrive in more challenging
climates, such as the Great Lakes region. A man in northern Minnesota is growing hazelnuts. It’s
part of his attempt to live off the land. And he says hazelnuts are the perfect crop for a future of
global climate change. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill visited his
farm:


John Munter lives on 40 acres of hay fields and woods. He and his wife and their four children
live in a ranch-style house in the middle of the fields. Munter works at a Northwest Airlines
reservation center. But his heart is here at the farm. It was settled by his grandfather, a Finnish
immigrant, 90 years ago.


Munter has a full beard. He wears round wire-rimmed glasses. And when he goes out to do the
chores, he puts on a fraying denim jacket that must be 50 years old. It belonged to his great-
uncle.


(sound of Munter walking outdoors)


“Here’s our maple sugaring operation… this is the garden here, you can see it’s pretty small.
We’re so busy it’s hard to spend a lot of time gardening… and to my right is the log sauna…”


John Munter has a lot of projects. He wants to be as self-sufficient as he can on the farm.


Twelve years ago he planted some hazelnut bushes south of the old farmhouse. They’re protected
from the north wind here, and they’ve grown to about seven feet tall.


This is a new crop for northern Minnesota. There are wild hazelnuts growing around here, but no
one had tried the newer varieties, that are bred to produce more and bigger nuts.


Four years ago, Munter’s bushes began producing nuts. He’s especially happy with one of the
bushes.


“It really just pounds out the nuts. They’re not real big, but they’re plentiful, last year we got
maybe two pounds of nuts from this little bush right here… Now this bush here produces nuts
early. They’re a signal to me because when the squirrels start attacking my nuts, they take after
this one first because they ripen earlier. You can see a bush loaded with hazelnuts, and the next
morning it’s stripped. And then they go to the next bush, and the next one, and so on. (Hemphill:
‘Then how do you get anything out of them?’) Well, I’m letting the animals have them at this
point, because I’m too busy with all my other projects to process all these little nuts.”


You have to take the long view with hazelnuts. Right now, these bushes are 12 years old, and
they’re just beginning to produce nuts. But Munter says in ten years, he could get hundreds of
pounds.


He could sell them to candy-makers, or just eat them. They’re high in protein and vitamins. And
Munter says the oil is as healthy as olive oil. Most hazelnuts come from Europe and Oregon.
John Munter is determined to show they’ll grow in northern Minnesota.


“They’re great for climate change too. Because they bend and don’t break… in hurricanes,
tornadoes and wind storms, whatever… if a forest fire burns it over, they’ll pop back up from the
base there.”


John Munter says hazelnuts could be an important source of food if the climate gets harsher.


Munter’s not the only one in the Great Lakes region trying out hazelnuts. Some researchers say
they’re the crop of the future. They say the bushes are better for the environment than corn and
soybeans.


Hazelnut bushes stay in the ground for years, so the soil isn’t eroded by plowing. And they’re
very good at absorbing fertilizers. That means excess fertilizer doesn’t run into nearby streams.


A few farmers are planting them, and thinking of switching gradually, from corn and soybeans, to
hazelnuts.


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

Converting Garbage Into Ethanol

A company in the Great Lakes region wants to convert trash into fuel. You might have heard of plants that burn garbage to create energy. But this plant is different. This plant would convert organic trash into ethanol. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

A company in the Great Lakes region wants to convert trash into fuel. You might have
heard of plants that burn garbage to create energy. But this plant is different. This plant
would convert organic trash into ethanol. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie
Grant reports:


The walls of Genahol, Inc., are covered with pictures of Donald Bogner’s wife and
children. Bogner is a ruddy-looking man with a friendly attitude. He’s the kind of guy
who likes to get things done. He started Genahol seven years ago, with the idea that he
could turn paper, leaves, and grass clippings into fuel.


“The green waste is such a problem, because, what do you do with it? Well, you chop it
up, you mix manure with it, you package it, and sooner or later you finally say, hey, I
can’t sell this stuff.”


Bogner says Genahol can make fuel out nearly any plant material. A lot of green waste
winds up in landfills. But Bogner patented a new kind of process. It converts green and
paper waste to sugar, distills the sugar into alcohol and transforms the alcohol into
ethanol. Until now, ethanol has usually been made from corn or other grains. Bogner
says they’ve been surprised by how many products they can re-use to make ethanol.
Anything from stale beer, to old perfume, or factory-rejected candy…


“You just can’t imagine the volume when you start talking about Christmas candy canes.
And a bad batch of candy canes may be three million candy canes that a producer has to
destroy because they came out wrong in a batch or whatever. So, you know, three
million candy canes (laughs).”


If a Genahol facility is built, Bogner says it could convert anywhere from one hundred to
one-thousand tons of waste per day and make up to three million gallons of ethanol a
year. As long as the selling price of ethanol remains over a dollar a gallon, Bogner says
Genahol can make money. But he needs a deal. He needs a city that’s willing to let him
sort through the trash. It should be an easy sell, he says, because cities could save landfill
space and get a cut of the profits from ethanol sales.


“The hardest sell right now is that we cannot right now take them to a facility and show
them ethanol coming out of a spigot.”


And that’s the problem not only with Genahol, but with other companies that want to
convert waste to ethanol. Their ideas are theoretical. But Bogner says things are about to
change for Genahol. He’s negotiating a contract with the Solid Waste Authority of
Central Ohio, known as SWACO. It is in charge of trash in Columbus and owns one of
the largest public landfills in the country. Executive Director Mike Long is interested in
Bogner’s ideas.


“We are always looking for new methods, cost effective methods to reduce, reuse and
recycle the waste stream to reduce reliance on landfills. That is our primary purpose at
SWACO, to reduce reliance on landfills.”


SWACO already diverts yard wastes and paper from the trash stream, but there hasn’t
been much of a market for those products. That’s why Long says contracting with
Genahol makes sense.


“It’s being approached on, I think, a very conservative point of view, small scale pilot
project. Trying to minimize the risk to SWACO and the public from a financial point of
view.”


It might be a bit of a risk. SWACO and other trash managers got burned in the mid-
1990s by waste-to-energy facilities. Some plants were forced to close because they
emitted too much pollution. Genahol’s Don Bogner says the only emissions from his
plant will be carbon dioxide, which he plans to capture and sell for industrial use.
Bogner and SWACO are negotiating one of the first deals in the nation for a trash-to-
ethanol plant. Many entrepreneurs trying to sell similar ideas are having a tough time
making a deal. Monte Shaw, an ethanol industry spokesperson, says these companies
should hang on a little longer.


“It’s always harder to be first. It’s always harder to convince investors, and banks, and
government agencies, that this is going to work. ”


The government is considering tax breaks and financial assistance to encourage new
ethanol plants. One reason the government is interested is to cut dependence on foreign
oil. Another reason, is ethanol is a good replacement for MTBE in gasoline. MTBE has
been used to reduce ozone pollution, but the chemical has contaminated water supplies
and the government wants to phase it out. Don Bogner expects the move from MTBE to
increase demand for ethanol. He’s wondering if that means Genahol will be able to turn a
profit.


“That’s what my wife asks me, are we going to make money this year?”


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant in Kent.

CONVERTING GARBAGE INTO ETHANOL (Short Version)

A company in the Great Lakes region wants to convert trash into fuel. This could be one of the first plants in the nation to convert organic trash into ethanol. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

A company in the Great Lakes region wants to convert trash into fuel. This could be one
of the first plants in the nation to convert organic trash into ethanol. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:


The president of Genahol, Inc., says his facilities can make fuel out of nearly any plant
material. A lot of paper, leaves, and grass clippings wind up in landfills. But Donald
Bogner patented a new kind of process. It converts green waste to sugar, distills the
sugar into alcohol and transforms the alcohol into ethanol. Ethanol is usually made from
corn or other grains. Bogner says Genahol reuses other people’s trash.


“Genahol actually receives payment for its materials. Rather than going out and having
to pay a dollar fifty to two fifty a bushel for corn or something, we actually get paid on a
tonnage basis. So it can be very, very profitable.”


No Genahol facility has yet been built. Bogner and the Solid Waste Authority of Central
Ohio are negotiating one of the first deals in the nation for a trash-to-ethanol plant.


For
the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Julie Grant in Kent.