Attorney Bruce Goodman

DELEG has funded the installation of anemometers to measure wind speeds on five towers across the state. MSU will collect the data from the towers in Gratiot, Delta, Antrim, Mason and Hillsdale counties and make the data accessible to the public online. The measurements will be taken at three heights, one of which will be as high as 100 meters. The data will be collected for at least one year.

The State of Michigan is doing what it can to encourage wind project developers to work on projects within the state.  The full impact of the renewable portfolio standard is still a few years away, and prices for power purchase agreements with state utilities are barely high enough to finance a wind farm.  Nonetheless, more wind data will be helpful.  Moreover, to the extent this data can be correlated to offshore wind data the long term impact is most likely to be to encourage in the lake projects.

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by Bruce Goodman

Notwithstanding the recent dramatic moves toward electric and electric hybrid automobiles, for the foreseeable future there will continue to be a high demand for liquid transportation fuels for automobiles, planes, boats, and trains. Moreover, notwithstanding the efforts going into wind and solar energy, the one alternative energy resource that makes economic sense right now, without subsidies, is biomass. Michigan, whose agricultural sector is its second largest industry at $63 billion annually and with a first class agricultural research institution in Michigan State University, is well positioned to respond to these realities. Converting biomass to electrical energy, heat, transportation fuels, and chemical feedstock for industry is already the goal of research being conducted in Michigan public and private laboratories. Imaginative and innovative projects are revealed almost daily. This effort must be continued, and enhanced, through both private and public research and development efforts. We need to improve yield and energy density of crops and improve conversion technology to reduce dependence on foreign oil and renewable fuels in order to move toward energy security and carbon neutrality.

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by Bruce Goodman

Last week I visited a canola test farm in central Michigan. Michigan State University is working with local farmers in an effort to establish a canola growing industry and is currently determining which variety of canola grows best in the local soils.

The draw of this effort is that canola can be grown both as a food crop and as a fuel crop. Thus, local farmers would have the opportunity to sell either into the food industry or into the bio-diesel marketplace. Having this option (in theory) provides greater price stability/options for a farmer growing the crop. This program highlights the role Michigan State University is playing in bringing to market ideas and strategies to assist the Michigan economy, particularly its second largest industry - agriculture.

My takeaway from my visit is that farming is a very difficult and uncertain business which in some respects is akin to going to Las Vegas. For example, on the day of my canola farm tour, all the farmers in attendance were in agreement that unless rains came within a day or two, the canola crop - as well as their own crops - would suffer and there would be direct consequences to their bottom lines.  Interestingly, three people from Kellogg were also on this canola tour scoping out the opportunity to buy canola locally.

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