Good afternoon, everyone. I think we're gonna get started here this afternoon. So thank you for joining us this afternoon I'm Jesse Stollark. I'm a policy associate at the Environmental and Energy Study Institute and thanks for joining us Thank you for all of you watching online. We have a very exciting program this afternoon on the Farm Bill energy title The energy title which was first introduced in the 2002 Farm Bill is just a small piece of the overall Farm Bill Yet as I hope we'll hear today this relatively modest federal investment has had outsized benefits To rural economic development. We have a great panel for you this afternoon With representatives from a number of companies that show the enormous reach these programs have and they range from renewable energy to energy Efficiency renewable chemicals fuels and products and we're in luck because they also brought some samples for us to look at We'll also hear from them about ways these programs can continue to evolve to create better economic opportunities and environmental outcomes So before we begin just a little bit of housekeeping I would be remiss not to recognize our partner in planning this briefing the agriculture energy energy coalition The coalition was formed just in the lead-up to the 2014 Farm Bill to advocate for the diverse ag energy and renewable energy interests in rural communities And has really been a leader in this space and EESI is a supporting member and the leader of the coalition Lloyd Ritter is here if you have any questions for him and Then if you were not aware of us EESI was founded over 30 years ago by a bipartisan congressional caucus But now serves as an independent nonprofit and you can check out our website to find out more information about this particular topic as Well as look at all of our past briefings fact sheets and newsletters and other items so Before we get started I just want to briefly introduce our speakers you have their bios in front of you and for those of you watching online if You go to the briefings page You can find them as well But I'll just quickly introduce them and then I'm going to turn it over to them because we have a lot a lot to Get through in a relatively short amount of time So first up we're going to have John Segrati John is the biomaterials business development manager at DuPont industrial biosciences. We have John Shaw the president of Ida Connick's corporation. We have Sarah Bajas Director of communications and governmental affairs at re-energy holdings We have Scott Coy-Hun co-founder and senior vice president of Alotera We have Graham Christiansen a Nebraska farmer and president of GC Resolve and last but not least We have James Duffy a partner at Nixon Peabody and here today representing the Distributed Wind Energy Association So without further ado, I'm going to turn it over to mr. Segrati. Thank you Thank you very much for the introduction. Thank you for the opportunity to speak As you heard him John Segrati with DuPont for 33 years and primarily in green products And today I'm going to be talking about within the farm bill energy title program There's a bio-based markets program and this program section 9 002 was around Helping provide value for commodities. I don't know if how familiar you are with this But a bio-based product is anything that's derived from plants or other renewable materials and this is could be ag forest products crops This can go into lubricants detergents polymers lots of different things. So it's an alternative to petroleum and DuPont and the government we've been a strong supporter of this for many years DuPont made a commitment quite a while ago to be always looking for greener better solutions and Taking our polymers and our materials and deriving them from Agricultural-based products made a lot of sense for both the environment and also from business so we've been a strong supporter of this because what this Program within this title program is something called the bio preferred label and Mandatory purchasing and so what that means is that the USDA Will go and third party a credit that yeah, this actually is something that's made bio-based So this helps provide credibility and visibility to bio-based products. I have a clicker There we go so To give you a little bit of background on DuPont and what we consider to be Successful the first thing is three pillars for success in biomaterials And the first one is to have a genuine innovative science to produce high-performance materials People there's still a bit of a stigma if it comes from bio or if it's natural. It's probably inferior The detergent maybe doesn't clean as well. So there's this stigma and we've always believed that it's just the opposite This is an opportunity to actually make superior products because the molecules are different And so we've been able to it's as to us. We won't pursue it unless we genuinely have a differentiated high performance The next thing is scalable supply. What's the point of making a great product if you can't afford it? So if we can't get to scale and we can't get the cost to where it's really going to move the needle There's also not a lot of point in doing it So this is also very important and last is the renewable sourcing aspect to it and view this to be very crucial We provide a lot of science and partnerships in being able to use renewable materials as the starting point and That gets to the responsibility piece, you know, what really is a responsible material Before I go in too deep on that Let me talk just real briefly around at the core of our biomaterials business is a it's basically an alcohol It's a special type of alcohol has a fancy name 1-3 propane dial You're all familiar with beer and wine. That's a fermentation process in which a natural biomass material is converted into ethanol This is pretty much the same thing the only difference is the organism in there instead of turning it into ethanol It makes a special alcohol a dial called propane dial or PDO as we call it So this bio PDO is very unique in that it can do a lot of things in Replacement of glycols and other petroleum based types of materials First of all what we do is we start with a with a biomass feedstock and this can be any crop and it's Starches are what we typically start with so we're looking for efficient land juice ways of getting at a starch And so we'll start with a starch and the sugars in there and we'll convert that using Fermentation and if you think about it and say if you wanted to make like a nylon You know you're gonna take oil and you're gonna boil that and make benzene and cook that to make caprolactin and cook That's more to make a polymer When you do fermentation you pretty much just pitch the yeast and let it go so from an energy reduction standpoint This is very significant. You're looking 60% less greenhouse gas emission than a nylon So these processes kind of are self-running and it's it's pretty cool So not only is the product of self very unique, but the process of self is extremely friendly So we can first of all we can take that bio PDO and we can use that directly either in cosmetics Zamiya is the brand name for that so that's used as a humectant which is it holds moisture so you can use that in moisturizers and Pharmaceutical household cleaners even food and flavoring. It's it's a very benign thing and it's it's a naturally occurring. It's it's an alcohol So so that's one way of using it the other way of using the bio PDO directly under the brand name Cistera is you can also use it in polymer resins, which I'll talk about in a second also heat transfer fluids Your your planes if they're de-iced there's good chance ahead of the de-icing fluid now It's a much better and better for the environment and safer chemical. So it's one of the other ways of using it So you can take this bio PDO and you can react it further to make a polymer and so that's what we call Serona and Pretty soon actually you'll start to see hang tags in the store of Serona We've been partnering with a lot of well-known brands like North Face and Burton and LL Bean And these are people that vet and take very seriously the environmental footprint, which is why we've we've found a very good partnership So these products later on if you want to come up I can show you examples replacement for animal hair for makeup brushes Mohawk carpets, which is a large residential carpet maker out there and so beautiful carpets Even interesting things like taking it and spinning it into foam replacements is a very lightweight cushion So a lot of interesting uses because the polymer itself is genuinely unique So That's an idea these materials that we're playing which is to kind of give you a case example We have more in the pipeline that we're coming out with so this is our current one. It's that's commercial So when we talk about responsible materials, there's a couple elements to it first is is to be environmentally responsible And that's gonna first of all, you know if you're looking at your feed source You're finding things that are incredibly efficient, you know It's we we carefully vet what feedstocks we're using where they're from to make sure that it's the most efficient source the best on land use water use The plants themselves. We usually use sugar, you know in this example. We're using sugars so we're gonna look at which plants efficiently convert energy and into sugar and Innovation is a key piece in there. So the the not only environmentally, but also socially Responsible is also another key piece in this whole thing. And so that's products and chemicals that are safe and benign to the human body geopolitically stable and you know, we always joke we'd much rather have the kids going out in cornfields and Than other fields, you know in order to protect this this this source of a raw material So it just politically geopolitically a lot more stable to be coming from an agricultural base And the key thing once you have this material the other thing is if people don't know about it It's gonna be hard to select it and purchase it and that's what we get to with the bio preferred program And so it needs to be identifiable So and it needs to be publicized and promoted because there's a lot of greenwashing It's hard to really know what you're actually buying there are plenty of products out there and especially working in the field Sometimes my eyes just roll as I see some of the things that are that are out there and being claimed green But the great thing about this program is is that this is a third-party validation that yes in fact this is A bio-based material and so we use this as a proof point In our marketing and literature and and so we can be found on if you want to know what products are bio-based You can go on the USDA bio preferred site and you can see which ones are are genuinely certified as bio-based So it's it's not just people talking, but the key is is that we've got we've got validation and we have promotion It's pretty much it Hi, my name is John Shaw. I'm the president of Ida Connick's corporation is a company that actually Was founded in 2008 As a spin-off out of a technology that was developed by the University of New Hampshire For polymerizing, polymerizing Ida Connick acid, which I don't necessarily expect you to understand, but I'll give you So important pointers about why it's important. So we are a small company We were privately funded for many years. We merged with a UK based Especially polymer company about two years ago That has now took our name. So Ida Connick's PLC is actually a UK based publicly traded company Working on specialty polymers. We're the world leader in polymers of Ida Connick acid Ida Connick acid is a naturally occurring Metabolite actually your body produces it But commercially it's used it's been a bit of a holy grail To make polymers of it since at least the 1960s The first patent filed on it was by Pfizer In 1960 to it was about a 36 hour Polymerization process to get to an 80% yield. So it was not viable Around that same time Procter and Gamble filed the first patent on the use of polyadaconic acid in cleaners Showing they had superior performance to sodium tripolyphosphates. So for 60 years people have been looking For this kind of holy grail of a polymer, but it wasn't producible. There was another attempt by Roman Haas in 1993 they got it down to about a 10 hour process still not economically viable And we were founded in 2008 as a spin-off out of the University of New Hampshire because our technical founder Dr. Avon Durant was able to get to a commercial process. It took to less than an hour to get to a hundred percent yield So about ten years ago the whole area of potential for using this product in Commercially was made available Ida Connick acid was already used broadly through produced by fermentation when we started the company there was three plants in the world one is it Cargill produced it at its citric acid plant in Eddieville, Iowa, and then there were two plants in China Since we're talking today about the effect that governments can have on your on your development of your company The first hit we had was in 2009 the federal government Made sound familiar put actually an import tariff on citric acid coming in from abroad from both Canada and China so citric acid prices went up and Cargill started making so much money at citric acid that they decided to no longer make Ida Connick acid That was a bad day in the development of our company because now we were relegated to only having oversea shipments of Ida Connick acid from two very good producers in China But in terms of our product development Many of the potential uses for our product were limited because our potential customers would not accept the supply chain Where the Ida Connick acid was coming across from from abroad? And whether we have hundreds of applications But to say if you're a large brain putting your large brand at risk when there wasn't a domestic supply of your raw material was difficult so we immediately had to change our product strategy and focus on smaller applications where the integrated supply of Ida Connick acid Was not required. Our ambition is to come back and we have the full capabilities to ferment Ida Connick acid ourselves And our key one for us as a small company is that we get financial support In the way of loan guarantees of the extending the loan guarantees that biofuel companies get for us to have a domestic Supply of Ida Connick acid. It's about a 30 million dollar investment to do at least Very difficult to raise that kind of money And it's critical to get domestic supply to be able to grow it again is to have these kind of programs available to us So again, we make a novel renewable polymer that has great customer value We focused on detergents when back Moved our focus to detergents in 2009 and we've been extremely successful in that area What the the first one is our key product is a water-soluble polymer of Ida Connick acid That's a leading replacement For the next generation of non-phosphate detergents Phosphates have been regulated out of detergents because the discharge into the environment is the phosphate ends up being a source of food for Algae the algae grow they cut off oxygen supply and you have bad rivers and bad lakes So regular to the actually the US has been very actually fairly aggressive and non-phosphate ones Some of the non-phosphate just coming into Europe But we work primarily in Europe in North America into non non-phosphate detergents is the key replacement for it The it we have tremendous growth in in the use of our products. We're in about 45 different end-user consumer products right now everything from Clorox greenworks to Method products planet automatic dish detergents the one up here is actually in private label If you go to a Lowe's store the private label automatic dish detergent I actually worked on formulating that we did the full formulation to get out on the market about 50% of our sales are in North America 50% of our sales are in Europe Half are an automatic dish detergent and half are in laundry detergents And again as the best replacement for phosphates to still have that level of performance We do all we have a broad range of capabilities one of the key ones for us is the potential to make a hundred percent Biobased and biodegradable superabsorbent to go into diapers That's a big program for us to develop going forward again an area That's difficult because that once you get into it the demand is so high That you have to have a very large plant to even start supplying into it Just to give a sense. We're about a 30 person company roughly split between the UK and here We've been growing fairly significantly on it in a tremendous opportunity for additional Employment growth as we expand to new areas Talk a little bit about the challenges that you have for us is demonstrating the value of a new material to go into an end product There's a very time-consuming process. You don't just walk into a large Detergent manufacturer say here go try this. It's a multi-year process significant amount of testing a long investment in technical Support and evaluations to get into it and that's critical for us as we're most of our funding goes But the same time you can't get into it unless you have a reliable supply So as you're developing that you still have to put a plant in place and you in doing so It's very capital intensive. So the availability of funding is that no one wants to give it to your customers don't want to give it to you You know every you're always searching around to try to find the funding for it And that's where the expansion of the section nine zero zero three Program for biofuels extending it into renewable chemicals is critical to us As it stands right now in the current Farm Bill These kind of supports are available for renewable biomass primarily advanced biofuels such as ethanol Into gasoline that's a pretty commodity one It's kind of replacement of just yeah, you know bio-based for gasoline side of it But we have much better and higher objectives to achieve within the Farm Bill One is to go after safer chemicals and second of all to go on that is ones that have less environmental impact And less accumulation it so for safer chemicals for example our polyad iconic acid is much safer to replace Phosphates another good example is nanocellulose is used to replacement of formaldehydes in everything from The glues that are used from for wood composites where the formaldehyde comes out into your house into your Into the environment and as harmful there are great green chemical replacements that are much safer in addition If you look in environmental impact side of it biodegradable polylactic acid and Pha packaging is a highly valuable Area where we don't get plastics going out into the environment and persisting the environment And then also for us a goal for us is to have a fully biodegradable super absorbent diaper To do this though we need to these are much higher value added products Than just looking at biofuels They create tremendous amount of value with tremendous amount of value create a huge amount of job opportunities But to do this we need the same benefits that the biofuel companies have had to build plants and extend them off into renewable Chemicals and that's critical for us. Thank you very much Good afternoon. My name is Sarah bogus I work for reenergy holdings and reenergy owns and operates biomass to electricity plants in the Northeast and I am pleased today to provide an update on one of the ongoing b-cap projects And we are known as b-cap project area 10 and this is a project that was awarded back in 2012 I have very fond memories of a beautiful day in July of 2012 when senator Gillibrand came up to a farm in central New York in the town of Mexico to announce this USDA award to support the Commercialization of shrub willow in central and northern New York and this was a partnership Between us and the College of Environmental Science and Forestry Which is a college that is part of the State University of New York? It's located in Syracuse and they were really the driver of this particular B-cap project There is a faculty member at ESF by the name of Tim Volk and he is I would say an International expert on shrub willow and he has devoted his entire 30-plus year career to studying shrub willow So he was eager to partner with us to see if we would provide an end market For shrub willow under the terms of a b-cap project so this slide Includes the like the project elements of Project area 10 USDA designated the project area in central and northern New York That would allow the expansion of shrub willow on biomass crops on marginal land so this was land that was lying fallow and Tim Volk could not work with these landowners to begin commercializing shrub willow unless these landowners Could have the wherewithal to not only establish these crops But then also to have an end market to sell the crops So re-energy committed to purchase all of the willow that these landowners could plant over an 11-year period At this time we have about 1200 acres in three counties that are enrolled in the program and More than 8,500 tons of willow have been delivered to our plants from the commencement of the project in 2013 Until the present So, you know our facility managers managers at our two plants in northern New York You know what there were some fits and starts in terms of how to blend that fuel into ours But over time it was determined that it was a suitable suitable fuel in terms of moisture and ash content and it's worked out well it tends to come every fall and at this point We are using exclusively at our re-energy black river plant, which is inside the front fence at Fort Drum And Fort Drum is a very large u.s. Army installation outside of Watertown, New York and Under the terms of a 20-year renewable energy supply agreement We are providing all of Fort Drum's electricity needs with our renewable electricity So I think it's pretty neat that this B cap project is allowing These landowners to use their marginal land to supply fuel to support a mission-critical Installation like Fort Drum So some of the benefits of the program as I've mentioned It overcomes the barriers of the high upfront cost to establish the crops Create stable long-term and markets it advances Tim Volk's research It provides fuel diversity benefits to us at re-energy We tend to use Mill residue and forest residue and this was a way to add some diversity to that fuel mix which is Always a good thing from our perspective It also supports jobs and rural development and Tim Volk has has pointed out two studies to me that Says that between 45 and 59 jobs are supported for every 10,000 acres of the cultivation of this crop We also have been providing extension services to landowners and that's been through the B cap program But also through four hundred thousand dollars from the New York State Energy and Research Development Authority So we were pleased to see New York State also get into the act and support this program And this has allowed the farmland to stay as farmland. Oh And Carrie from the biomass power association wanted me to point out that B cap could really be helpful To Western New York where they are as you know really struggling with forest fire risk And that B cap could fund the collection and transportation of biomass to the plants that are making use of that fuel Out in California. Okay. Hi, Scott Coyhean with Alaterra So first of all, I have to say happy birthday to my wife who may be watching this on the webinar So Erica happy birthday I'm sure you know you really wanted your husband talking about policy and B cap in DC for your birthday present So here we are I Wanted to start out with a Thank you to Kelly Novak and Matt punish Todd Atkinson and and Darlene Freeman all with the FSA those are the individuals that put in monster hours for our company to get this project up off the ground and Oops, I guess I need to do this Yeah, there we go And without their work This this would have this would have never happened So that extends everybody in this room, you know as you're working on these policy issues the message that I want to get across today is that what you're doing does make a difference and I'm gonna give you some statistics here that this is this is starting to have an impact in rural America and I hope to give you a little glimmer of my vision of Tens of thousands and even millions of jobs that a project like B cap could launch in the next the next few decades So what what B cap does is it provides a subsidy to the farmer to plant the crop It provides a rent payment to the farmer While they're waiting for the crop to mature and it provides a matching payment for the crop after it's harvested to Subsidize the harvesting cost the reason this is important is because what we're trying to do is commercialized plants that haven't been commercial before We're trying to bring a new corn or a new soybean into the market when we started this process Iscantus is a sterile plant. It has no seed. So we have to dig these rhizomes out of the ground We've got to put them in cold storage pulling back out of cold storage and put them back in the ground again Using specialized equipment it costs about $1,500 an acre. That's a complete non-starter and farming So what the B cap program did is allowed us to get that cost to about $500 an acre It's a 20 year crop. So just over 10 years. You're looking at $50 an acre and now we're talking about a crop that that has a chance in the market Time is a really big issue in B cap So if you're a farmer and you may have just paid a bunch of money to put this perennial crop into your ground Or maybe it was subsidized by B cap You still have to wait two three four five years for it to mature and you just you can't do that waiting for revenue So the the rent payment is a big deal to the farmers and it's what got got our farmers involved We actually didn't have an end-use contract when we started this project and we signed up 4,000 acres in 90 days Using marginal land in Northeast Ohio and Northwest Pennsylvania and the reason we were able to do that was because B cap reduced the risk significantly on Planting and allow the farmer to get a small payment on rent The last piece is critical mass Well, let me not not skip over the investor issue in time. I Can't go to the investment community and say hey I need five million dollars to plant for five thousand acres And I need you to wait three or four years and then I'm going to build you a manufacturing facility Then a couple years later. We're going to start to generate revenue. It's it's a complete non-starter. So The role of B cap is to get that raw material supply chain going and then the market the private market can come in with our Investments in manufacturing and we can bring this thing home. And so that's obviously pretty important critical mass 500 acres a thousand acres doesn't really do me any good I need I need a few thousand acres in our case. It was 4,000 We're on paper I had enough material that when I found a customer that wanted to buy a product that I could make when that customer says Well, can I get this 365 days a year? The answer has to be yes. Otherwise. I'm not really a player in the US economy It's it's a pet project So this critical mass is really important to to get these these projects moving. So so that's what we did B cap supported. We're a B cap project area five in 2012. We planted 4,000 acres We had to wait a few years. We pivoted away from renewable liquid fuel. That's a pretty long story We started to look at what the fiber qualities were of this crop We did a bunch of R&D over a couple years and what we figured out Was there's actually Enormous opportunity in the biobased markets. So our first manufacturing plant was built in 2014 Selling absorbance not a real exciting product, but it turns out that miscanthus absorbs four times its own weight and oil and there are Thousands of uses for mixing off our absorbent with different products and industries and can help them with a more cost-effective cleanup Method so that's been a pretty big deal for us. What that's allowed us to do is Buy all of our farmers crop Keep the project stable and now we get to go for more exciting products like the products these gentlemen were describing a few minutes ago so our next step was we learned how to pulp miscanthus non wood pulp and then So this isn't at scale You can't do a thousand tons a day like our traditional pulp mills in the United States around the world We figured out had to do it ten tons a day Economically so what do you do with pulp at ten tons a day? Well, we decided to go into molded fiber food service packaging 99% of the food service packaging in this country. That's green and sustainable is actually coming from Asia and The industries that are buying these products say look we will buy Literally hundreds of millions and billions of pieces of stuff, but it's got to be made in the USA so there is Great market opportunity here for for molded fiber packaging So what we did is we we cobbled together enough funding to do six manufacturing lines It's about 60 million pieces a year with our pulp mill We put together a world development loan guarantee the B&I program to guarantee our equipment That was critical the project would not have happened without the world development loan guarantee We did an SBA loan guarantee on the real estate jobs, Ohio Chipped in some loan dollars and ashtabula 503 our local economic development put in CDBG Economic development doc, so we put all that together we launched this project We then flailed around for about two years Uninstalling and reinstalling all the equipment redoing all the engineering and redoing all the material flow Total nightmare, but that's what you have to do in this industry. There's nobody to call There's no experts. This is the first facility in the world. It's been built like this So we had to fight through all of our own problems This last quarter we got everything figured out We are now going to expand from six to 30 lines in the next year So we are going to be going from 70 full-time jobs to 250 full-time jobs There's another announcement that we're going to make in a few months That's gonna has related products to this that we're not ready to talk about yet But we're gonna be bumping up to around 750 to 800 jobs in the next few years All of this is because of B cap It's all built on that crop subsidy to get these these crops up and off the ground. So a pretty big deal Now what we're really excited about is interesting enough was just mentioned in two speakers ago by John With cellulose nano crystals. So think of rebar for concrete You put rebar in concrete you make it, you know much stronger on the cellular level if you can isolate the nano crystals and living organisms You can put that product into plastics foams gels paints Shampoos and you can increase the performance of those products significantly. You can make them more sustainable And create, you know all kinds of new products. Well, it turns out that The aspect ratio of miscanthus cnc is bigger and thicker than anything they've seen so far in nature Three weeks ago. We found out that we got the patent to produce Cnc's out of miscanthus So now we're starting to get in some really advanced materials and advanced manufacturing again build off of B cap We're working with Argonne National Lab University of Chicago and Case Western University in Ohio to commercialize this as quickly as possible We see that we see the potential to build Dozens of manufacturing facilities producing cnc's because there's literally hundreds if not thousands of products that cnc's can improve So again, this is all built off of B cap. We have lots of other products. We want to get into development so The vision I want to try to get across here is this is 4,500 acres Miscanthus can be grown on 40 million idle acres in the Midwest and far West and that's just our crop There's over 20 30 good energy crops that are out there perennial crops that B cap can support So if we've created, you know about 70 full-time jobs and we're gonna go to 250 jobs of 4,500 acres You know, what's the potential here the five million dollars that was that came into our project generated? $25 million in private investment dollars. So there's a 5 to 1 ratio right now We're in the market right now to raise another 40 million in private capital So there's gonna be a 65 million to 5 million ratio private to public dollars here. So it's a good investment We have over 125 farming families at this point that are generating revenue from this crop both landowners and farmers We've had dozens of families tell us that this is helping them keep the farm in their families You have marginal soils. If you don't keep crops on your land, you lose your tax breaks You know, it can't really it doesn't make sense to keep the farm anymore. So there's a lot of farm farm Company or sorry, there's a lot of farm families that we've talked to that have kept the farms in the family because they have Miscanthus growing on their fields now. So there's a there's a pretty big impact there. I've already covered these other issues So what we're talking about here is is commercializing crops new crops for the farming community, right? So Whatever happens to Alatera and whatever we end up doing in the industry. Miscanthus is now commercial again You can you can plan it for $500. So I'm very confident because miscanthus can do anything the tree can do and actually replace La Petroleum products that in 10 20 years miscanthus is going to be in Hundreds of products just like we saw corn develop, you know in soybeans to start at one or two products now They're in thousands of products. So B cap can continue to commercialize new crops Increase the portfolio of crops for our farming community and now they've got more and more crops that they can use to diversify their risk in the commodities And then companies like mine are going to come in and look at this Portfolio of crops that are commercial and then we can create a bunch of advanced materials products, etc. And build more manufacturing facilities. So That's our story. We think B caps great and we hope we hope it continues to get significant funding. So this can keep going Greetings My name is Graham Christensen I'm also going to show how parts of the energy title are good for small business people I am one of those farmers that's always looking to diversify our operation. I come from a family farm in Nebraska This is our I'm a fifth-generation farmer and this is our hundred and fiftieth anniversary years since we have first homesteaded and Also, I'm a young rural entrepreneur I have a small Contracting company that develops solar and systems and alternative energy projects called GC revolt And this is I also have another business that dives a little bit further into the environmental side of things as well but since in just under three years so far we have that my company has developed 25 systems and What what we're finding out Let me actually rewind one Let me talk a little bit what reap is actually about first The renewable energy for America program is the one that I have the most experience in in dealing with at my business And what what happens with reap is for grants and loan guarantees to farmers ranchers and small businesses And it's also a cost share for installing a variety of renewable energy systems This is this is the portion that we're utilizing a lot in Nebraska right now What is it used for specifically biomass geothermal hydro wind energy and solar energy and also energy efficiency is a big component of that as Well, so as I was saying a bit ago about 20 about 25 systems We have put up in just under three years And this is in Nebraska with the trickling of projects going across the river into Iowa And the interest level is really exploding without having to do a whole lot of marketing I'm getting calls an interest all the time on this Farmers are moving in this direction because we're starting to cross over is starting to make a lot of fiscal sense For example at this time I can develop a project for about five cents per kilowatt hour over 25 years Just a straight fixed price is because that project's been paid for Currently in Nebraska utility bills are about 10 cents per kilowatt hour with inflation so you can see see how you start diving into that that the Getting a good return on investment on on your project due to those numbers so this is the actually the first project that I ever did and The reap program of course was utilized on this project So this my first project probably in small part was actually due to being able to have a program That paid for more of the upfront cost Because when you purchase a solar system you usually have a heavy upfront cost and that can be one of the restrictive factors This helps us these grants help us be able to to alleviate some of those financial pressures and and coming from a You know a rural conservative area Every penny really counts on these independent business type operations So folks are very interested in this on this Brumman project is a $40,000 price tag and and you can see that we were able to get a grant of about $9,900 to alleviate some of those upfront pressures and and also to point out that The rest of those monies end out going to a lot of different areas electrical contractors In some case we have a banks that are being involved in financing these programs The the two part-time employees that that worked with me Equipment costs and of course also sales tax, you know, which is going to a lot of other things in our state This was an award-winner through the USDA program and this one further gives you an idea of How many different kinds of people get involved in a in a project like this? That was priced, you know around that between that $80,000 and $90,000 area. I once again for this Small rural business. This is a this is a nursery and my friend Jenny helped establish this This was her dream for rural entrepreneurship. She built this nursery right on the farm without this this grant This this group wouldn't have been pulled together and these new revenues, you know, wouldn't have ever existed and Of course, you have to practice what you preach. So just this a couple days before Easter This is this is our family farm and and this is our brand-new system. We just fired one up ourselves And we're using that to not only power the farm, but also power an electric vehicle fleet that helps us get around from place to place and in Northeast Nebraska and I've also worked a little bit with the wind energy component of the REAP program This picture you're seeing right here This is a group of farm family investors that put up some risk money in order to try to move forward on a community project and This grant was for $12,500 was specifically focused on the feasibility Aspect of the grant meaning that we bought a meteorological tower We started testing the wind speeds on the high ridge in our area Found out we had great wind potential and so now we've made friends with a bigger company In which is working with us to drive in a wind project into the Burt County area Which will help bring new tax revenues into our area, which are really important right now There's a lot of property tax pressure on the farmer in Nebraska So this helps alleviate some of those pressures or it gets us started down that road Also this as we sold some of that wind added to the bigger company We still have intentions of taking this to the next step and actually develop Developing a community scale project that serves our community and allows for more local investment So we're all about trying to drive revenue centers back home and especially at a time when commodity prices are low We're looking for all these kind of unique and creative opportunities that we can find So What's the value proposition of reap you've heard some of that already? But these are new jobs new rural entrepreneurial opportunities that are desperately needed a new revenue streams for rural businesses This is lowering our price of electricity for the long term. So, you know Being not even 40 yet. I'm still looking, you know 40 20 30 40 years down the road How can we lock in and solidify consistent and low price energy? this helps us get a step closer to that and And also energy security. We don't spend enough time talking about energy security, but the more distributed energy projects we have The the the more secure our communities and our families will be and then reap also does help alleviate some of the cost differences that we're still dealing with with the lithium ion batteries the Tesla power walls, etc There's a lot of interest for this and in in rural Nebraska You talk about an independent family farmer and the independent mindset Oh, they'd they'd like to be able to produce energy themselves and not have any kind of concerns about Way on the edge of the line in these remote areas when the grid reliability is not great They still want to produce energy Some of the farms we work with have cold storage to store food and keep it fresh if the energy goes down They're out of business. And so the battery helps retain that consistency in the grid And it's such a great such a great mix with solar systems right now in rural areas We have a ton of interest here and and it's and and while solar systems have started to decline rapidly in price The battery systems are not that way yet. So this program helps us get our foot in the door So that we can start learning about the next wave of technology also and I actually have an application in right now that would be Starting to look at how we apply our first lithium ion battery to an organic farm in the far reaches of the state and the Nebraska panhandle No emissions and no water, of course is a big deal We have to be cognizant about our environment That's why I set up business to try to help farmers be in the lead role instead of on the other side of things While making fiscal sense while proving an economic case while driving in revenues into into our state and our home communities And we talked about also funds this funds the front front-end costs, which sometimes is tough for people to make So this is a very important program And I'm really pleased that everybody's here to learn about this but The energy title does a lot from my home community. So I'm look forward to talking about that a little bit more even Hi, I'm Jim Duffy. Thank you for coming I'm a lawyer in private practice with the law firm Nixon Peabody based in Boston But I'm here today in my capacity as a board member of the distributed wind energy association where I'm also on their executive committee and Secretary of the board And that's me without a beer as you can see from the Picture there and from other pictures we have a lot of what Distributed wind energy is is not your 200 megawatt wind farms. It's small on-site installations, whether residential school commercial remote military farms probably being the largest public buildings and Remote foreign areas there are a lot of places where small Distributed wind facilities exist right now in the consortium of the people involved You've probably never heard of any of the names of the companies up here But there are a lot of small businesses all over the country that are involved in manufacturing installation Maintenance and financing of of small wind. So it's a decent-sized association with quite a few members So the benefits of of distributed wind really are it helps economically distressed areas Farmers being one of the primary ones Farmers with a small wind facility on their farm can save You know depending on the wind regime in the area can save significant amounts on their energy bill by generating themselves and using it on site or by having a Third-party come in and build it and sell the energy at below what the what the utility would charge And we all know how farms are stressed for income these days it It contributes to American manufacturing Unlike some of the larger wind turbines the small ones are according to DOE The small and medium-sized turbines are approximately 90% domestic content There are manufacturing facilities by some of the member of our association in the previous slides to produce all around the country Bergy wind power in Oklahoma City and Norman Oklahoma actually northern wind power up in Vermont and Both of those do a significant amount of export to Europe and Asia as well to benefit the US economy So Distributed wind like distributed renewable energy everywhere Strengthens the grid it requires less use of the grid because there's certain amount of Energy is generated on site and doesn't have to travel through the grid Minimize as necessary grid upgrades It has huge potential the DOE and national laboratories last year said there were 50 million potential sites in the country with where they deemed it was most likely sufficient wind to economically put small wind on small businesses Perhaps on larger residences They're in all 50 states and it's one of the major undeveloped national resources that we could capture It's it's right there for the taking now We've had several policy objectives at Dewea to make to make this happen one was to Grow the R&D budget at the DOE which fortunately in the recent budget An act to meant Provided ten million dollars for distributed wind R&D that has been tremendously helpful and rapidly bringing down The costs of producing on-site wind more and more efficient machines Thorough testing of these machines to certify that they work and that they produce the benefits anticipated Extended USDA reap fundings, you know Graham just talked a lot about reap We're here to support the entire energy title, but in particular the reap project which distributed wind has utilized In particular for underserved technologies now what I mean by that and I think a lot of a lot of our speakers There's a theme here. We've got new innovative Ways to produce energy or the order benefit farms that perhaps don't have a 20-year track record so perhaps the Official at the state who's allocating reap money might not be able to as easily justify These projects we're hoping that going forward there could be a little more flexibility in reap funding So it can be a nimble program and reward proven, but still relatively new Technologies and improvement on existing technologies. I think that's sort of a common theme and what we're all Hoping to be able to do here, and I think that's really where the government should be stepping in and helping Where people are coming up with something innovative? It distributed wind we will hope you know we were one of the so-called orphan technologies that didn't get our federal tax Credit extended a couple of years ago recently. We've got a better system Although it's still not fully Parity with solar so we have a we're very thankful for what the Congress did in the budget bill But hoping to make it pure true parody going forward We've worked on on tax reforms every year on USDA programs every year a couple of examples up here I mentioned the scoring techniques where we're hopeful that newer and more innovative although proof in technologies Will not necessarily be hurt by not having a long track record And we support full funding of the energy title in the reap program on those basis We would also hope that the categorical categorical exclusion for small systems Which is granted to small solar in the current program would be extended to other technologies like wind So we don't have to go through onerous environmental documentation on small on-site installation installations And we hope that made in America is a consideration these the small wind really is Soup to nuts manufactured in the United States We manufacture a lot more here than we actually use here because of the exports One way, you know, we're really cutting edge in small wind is because the projects are so small It has been very difficult to get financing for them banks don't you know I'm sure Graham's experiences to grab so banks don't want to make a $10,000 loan to a small business So we have recently done larger portfolios with the financing with major banks and insurance companies That's really only in the first to second year We recently did one with over a hundred small wind turbines installed on farms in upstate, New York With some help from the New York Green Bank We think more of that can be done as we get more and more efficient technology and Sufficient support from reap and the energy title generally to move us forward Thank you Thank you and our someone from ESI wanted to let me tell you in the audience that there We ran out of slides outside, but there they will be on our website if you're interested in accessing them later But thank you to our speakers That was a great sort of display of the variety of technologies and end uses that are possible because of the energy title And I was really struck and listening to the presentations today that they not only are Replacements for traditional products and fuels, but they are better replacements So with that I want to open it up to questions from the audience and see if we can start a good discussion We have one question in the front here And I ask that you wait until the microphone reaches you so that also the folks joining online can hear us as well Hello, I'm Taxpayer who supports the free enterprise system and smaller government and the question and the question I have is number two It's two part number one Are you saying that if you had to rely on the free enterprise system for your for your customer base without subsidies and mandates? Your businesses would not exist and number two is we've heard today about how The subsidies and mandates benefit, you know the farmers and workers in America But I like but I like to know How you feel that the sub these subsidies and mandates will benefit the much larger group of taxpayers and consumers who have to pay for them Thank you So I think the question we can distill down to kind of what is another sexually a question I had what be you know We've talked a lot about the benefit to rural communities to farmers of these programs But kind of let's talk about the broader benefits to the general populace You know most people don't don't live in rural America most of us live in urban areas So what are the benefits to the rest of America of these programs? John go ahead Yeah, I'm happy to speak to that. I know what we We hear here is a broad range of companies With different types of requests for support on it. I can say for our company. We were privately funded We did not receive government Supports on it to grow our business and when you look at the benefits that we have in terms of Being able to advance often to safer chemicals I have less environmental accumulation of chemicals out there The ability to have products that out there do actually I think benefits More the urban areas where the issue of safer chemicals and accumulation of plastics And whatnot actually prize a much bigger impact in in in the urban areas In terms of the type of materials that we deal with the being safer and less environmental Cumulation and again we exist as a private company You know we have always existed as a private company Not dependent on government subsidies on it, but but again to be able to extend the benefits to a broader range of people There's a specific need for assistance and capital in it that that would be that the On the risk capital side of it Graham I Appreciate that question. I Would advocate, you know before cutting or discriminating against one type of energy source first the other You know all across the board elimination of subsidy systems because these programs are getting way Less taxpayer funded subsidies than a lot of the typical energy sources that you're that you're used to so it Artificially deflates the price of energy You know something even all across the boards one way or the other is something that I've always been a big advocate for and also As far as you know, you goes you wherever you live if it's in the here in Washington, DC or or Or you know, maybe you're back home from somewhere in Chicago or in in our case Omaha when we get a wind project into the ground That means that a lot of times we're selling it to Omaha Public Power District in our area So now we've locked in the lowest form of energy we can at least as far as wind energy goes And that means that solidified for 25 years is about the life of a lot of the wind projects now So we we've ensured that you're gonna be paying lower electricity bills for a longer time And that's huge. I already talked about the different jobs that come with the investment that this is about Financing contracting electrician surveyors and and more investment opportunities at the most local levels We don't have a lot of you know revenue opportunities where I'm from so you know These are these are needed in our area if we're even going to keep our community around and then finally As as we start to move further down our life some of these Environmental impacts from some of these other Sources of energy are also causing health issues and those are bills that become harder and harder to pay all the time So if we can have a preventative approach to health issues, we also eliminate those costs in the long run You know you look at it in that sense and you take all of the dollar bills that are factored into us And you can see how you can make a pretty good case Great questions back here Hello, I was wondering if the panel has found any crops specifically grown for either energy purposes or for Bioproduct purposes that could also double as maybe a cover crop that we planted in off-growing seasons and then also sold To companies like yourself So if let's say You're a farmer and you grow a specific crop or do you crop rotations? Is there any way that these these crops maybe not something like a willow tree that could take a couple of years to grow? But have you guys found any kind of crops that could grow within let's say four months during an off-growing season that could Then be sold Well, I haven't found a crop specifically that you you're asking about What what we have and this this would take R&D dollars But what we have played around with a little bit with some of our farmers is the idea of intercropping while these These crops need time to mature So a lot of these promising perennial crops need two three four years to mature and while they're doing that as you as you Probably are well aware you've got weed control issues and you've also just get you have lost that land during that time So I actually talked to a guy in Illinois for a while that was planting rows of corn in between this miscanthus And was finding some success. I don't know exactly where all that went But I think there's a really it's a really interesting question in terms of can you can you double crop or do some interrow cropping? For a couple years while that while that perennial crop matures And I think that's a that's a really interesting concept that we look at but in terms of cover crops I haven't I haven't seen anything yet, but maybe that yeah John did you want to add anything? about the About the only thing I would add on that is is that we're really at the very beginning of this. That's what's exciting about it and that's why doing things that we can in order to provide promotion for these and Creating the perception that these products are actually can be superior I think is is really key because then what that does is that drives investment interest and excitement in really looking for those Now as I mentioned for a company like DuPont scale is very important when we're going to do things on a large scale So you'd have to have you know a crop base that would have sufficient just mass and quantity and and collectibility in order to be Viable that said there's always an Interesting perspective of unique molecules or unique. So that's where I think that partnership Between growers and we've seen it in a lot of other industries more in the food industry And and I think that as as these products as we start to understand more the relationship between The raw material source and then what's potential? I think there's an awful lot of future potential of specialty products that are being driven for specialty chemicals as either replacements or What would be much better something that's even more benign and superior and in property? So we're at the very beginning of this, but I think that's why it's so crucial that programs like this are supported because you need successes you need wins and we have a tendency we're gonna go after the not to make a bad joke the lower hanging fruit, but But I think it's important that we win with this and we establish a preference for these materials and and then I think that the rest will follow Great Questions yes, we got one right up here in the front. Oh, no right behind you Hi, I'm John Kenees. I'm an energy policy consultant It's really a question about distributed power Coupled with storage I think is a very important element to expand it to get the most benefit out of it Do you see a lot of competition because of large suppliers that are buying up? the technology for You know areas in Nevada, etc. Compared to you know these smaller Smaller installations, and you see that as an impediment for even further expansion It is an issue currently in a place like Nebraska First one of the first things everybody talks about after the solar is the Tesla power wall And I've called all around the country Denver and Minneapolis are the closest Outlets you know for Nebraska, and they're not interested in the market here right now So the thing that people most identify with is not very accessible So we're looking at alternatives, but you know being that the the Technology is still somewhat new. We got a pretty good idea. We're doing but There's not a lot of other options that are really credible, but it's changing You know, I think every time somebody asked me about it We take another peak and there's something kind of new floating around out there But you know currently While the solar system seems like it's you know a lot more easy to justify the battery is still a little too pricey So I'm hoping we can get a little bit more focus on kind of those independent business owners in the Midwest Because they're definitely as interest, but We're probably gonna need to to make sure that we have some support system to get the first ones out there So people can grow comfortable Yeah, I think a lot of these decisions are made locally on site by individual farmers or businesses I think the storage is clearly coming. It's getting better but the cost curve is coming down pretty quickly on storage and I think a lot of people are waiting on the storage component Until the cost come down further and it becomes even more Attractive price-wise, but it's coming and it's it's gonna be part of this we could also use you know right now there's a Tax-spreaded subsidy for the energy equipment itself and there's some uncertainty where the storage is energy equipment or not and It would be very helpful. The iris is studying the question has been for several years. You'll be very helpful to get an answer on that We have a question over here This follows up a little bit on the previous question and it's more of a plug than a than a question So I am it Pete Wyckoff. I'm the new energy policy advisor for Minnesota Senator Tina Smith And we just dropped a bill s2 619 that would reauthorize the farm bill energy title and it takes Takes out a lot of what I'm hearing today and puts it in the bill and one of the things we would do would be to allow combined storage and Production as a re-eligible thing to do. So if this is your sort of thing I would encourage you to take a look at our bill and And I'd be happy to answer any questions Thanks, Pete, and there's also copies of the bill. I believe outside on the table here interested in taking a look There's a question over here in the middle Can you talk about the role of state government in conjunction with federal policy in terms of how it helps drive innovation or farmers? Well, I will say that where there is a state Encouragement that's where you see more going on Graham and I were talking about at lunch today and There were certain jurisdictions where you see more than others and it's often where there is a state incentive that Goes with the federal incentive to make it more attractive Hope you There are plenty of examples Unfortunately, this like the federal the state changes year to year and certain states are more attractive or less attractive from year to year At the state level in Nebraska, we're having a lot of trouble getting traction on anything renewable energy To kind of put us in the forefront of this right now. So we become somewhat a little bit You know more in tune with federal programs And and there's there's some things that have allowed us to get the foot in the door But there's still some restrictions there. So we're being held back. So You know, it's important to be looking at it from both lenses But you know, I don't think Nebraska has only stayed across the middle of the country That is is really having trouble to be unable to have an intellectual conversation on on these new energy sources On the state side is one we get a lot of calls because people would love us to go move to their state and Create jobs in another state and when I take those calls, I say well what the incentives and they say well We'll give you tax incentives. I say you realize you're calling New Hampshire We're the live free or die. I say we don't have taxes in the first place. So what you're offering me really doesn't help So we've decided we located in the right place the first time in terms of states say the state support Which we just don't have income taxes Sorry interrupt. I do want to speak to that a little bit just I can only speak from our personal experience But I will say that so the the administration in the state of Ohio right now has a program called jobs Ohio that's the economic development wing in the state of Ohio and they contributed a 1.25 million dollar loan to our pulp and molded fiber packaging plant and That that additional loan was critical the project would not have gotten off the ground with you know without that piece of it And you know I give them credit because you know that economic development arm looks at this very similar to the way a bank looks at These projects so you know, it's it's fairly stringent criteria and you know They still you know took some risk in in supporting our project because they believed in what they were able to do for a rural community northeast Ohio So you know, it's a it's a small sample size there But the state of Ohio's you know helped get this project off the ground and you know We believe we're hoping that you know the tax dollars going back there now are making making it worth it. So Just a follow-on to Graham in particular of why the resistance or in Nebraska in particular is not the the lure of you know jobs economic development particularly in rural areas having any impact at all Why why the resistance at the state level? It's tough to make complete sense out of it but There's there's just not a complete understanding of things yet I don't I don't think I don't I don't I also don't think that Folks are grasping the enormous amount of potential that this has for for rural at this time so We continue to go about doing the educational process, you know things like today back home and You know once in a while we we make some progress there, but overall that combined with a Really strong, you know, rural elect electric association, you know push on some other forms of energy It's made it a little bit more difficult to move forward as aggressively as we need to to take full advantage of this this new business opportunity I need a question for either of the Johns I don't know if you could speak to this for me I was wondering kind of where are we now in terms of the renewable chemical market today and kind of what's What is the growth potential in terms of renewable chemicals? Can you give me a sense of kind of what the potential is? as I said, I think in general, I think we're really just at the tip of the iceberg because a lot of these Chemicals are genuinely unique and so it's it's more than just the replacement It really does open up new markets on the Serona side on the prop and dial. I mean, we've been extremely successful And that's just one, you know, we we definitely see the opportunity for whole new platforms and so I you know Personally, I'm quite bullish and I mean, I think it really has it's actually just begun What makes what for an example what makes prop and dial unique is that it has three carbons Well, anything coming out of petroleum has to be divisible by two So what makes three unique is it's a it's a helix. It's a coil It's kind of unique in nature. So a chemical that we knew how to make Synthesizing from a petroleum base. We knew about it I mean Dupont invented it back in them. I think 47 or something like that. It was really expensive to make So as you start to play around with plant base and and take a look it opens up whole new unique molecules that are far superior and Ironically, it's it's a it's a very low energy way of making it. So This is just in you know, if you look at just the total history of it When Tim Gerke from Dupont, you know first thought about this back And I think it was 93 or somewhere and then he was all excited on the halls Oh, this is this is just all out there this three carbon molecule and and that's just one when you look at what it spurred So there's so many more so many more areas and potential and so I think we're only at the at the very start Totally agree I think and it really speaks back to the need to expand from my perspective that 903 Into broader areas, I think there has been a wave over the last 10 The initial wave was just to have a renewable version of an existing chemical and Billions of dollars was invested in it and I said well, why why do that? I mean that I don't understand what the value of it is Whereas what you're seeing now those of us who survived and a prospered are coming out with Totally novel chemistry with far greater value than just being renewable as I spoke about, you know, they're safer chemicals They have lower VOCs. They have less harmful to the environment less harmful to the human exposure They're they don't accumulate in the environment. These are these are far far more Important and valuable goals to go after than just whether it's from a renewable biomass So I think I totally agree with John, you know, 10 or 15 years from now We're gonna look back and see that there'll be a range of probably 20 to 20 to at least 30 Fundamentally new chemistries that come out that are total breakthroughs In terms of the benefit the benefits to the end products to consumer end products industrial and products and that we improve And that they're safe safer to Safer chemicals to use and that they have less impact on the environment and we're still very early in those stages I Think it's important in both wind and solar as prices come down and as machines get more efficient less costly More more areas open up where you can if you can effectively use them We're now doing wind in areas that were considered not windy enough 10 years ago But with the new machines and costs coming down they can be done there So I don't think we know the full extent of it yet. It's still relatively new Great any other questions Hi, you can just state state your question if it's not working Yeah, Todd Yoast here. I'm representing the Alliance to save energy This question is for Graham, but anybody else can chip in You mentioned earlier that you were able to use reap to help to use Energy efficiency upgrades to HVAC and lighting and whatnot.  What exactly you what exactly you did and The benefits that you've seen accrue from that up to this point to to be honest I haven't specifically worked on one of those programs. I just wanted to make sure it was highlighted But the energy efficiency pieces it's big of a piece of anything of this And I imagine as we expand in the future years We're going to be trying to take a look at how we pair these things to bring Energy usage down and then match solar, you know And then of course that lowers the cost of everything all the way around so There's a lot of need for this in rural areas. There's been some utilities that have gone forth and moved on these programs They're popular when they do But I you know, that is something that I think is vital But you know, we haven't used it ourselves with our business yet. Are there any questions on b-cap specifically? I know we haven't really talked about b-cap Sarah can you are you guys looking at other regions or feedstocks for re-energy or are you just focusing on shrub willow? At this point only shrub willow we have been thinking about whether there's any b-cap potential At our four plants in Maine. In fact, I was just talking to Scott about that earlier today We're also looking at you know potentially Finding a bio-based manufacturer to co-locate with us at our four plants in Maine So I'm looking forward to spending time with my colleagues after this session to talk to them more about that But you know, we really represent the entire value chain of the bio economy here And I think that's also important to point out. I mean, we're all important to the bio economy in a different way It wouldn't be fair to give everybody a question from me. So Scott are you using the bio preferred labeling program? Yes, you can search our name in the database right now and we Applied our pulp as an intermediate. So anything that you make our pulp out of Is eligible for the program. So can you explain? I don't think we exactly explain for those of you may not know what exactly? You know, what is bio preferred kind of what does that label convey and how are how is the federal government using bio preferred? You know, I may I may need to defer to my colleague here as I recall it We we put in an application. We had to do the ASTM standard to verify what the you know That this was new carbon and not old carbon and then once that was verified there are there are criteria as What percentage you know of renewable your product needs to needs to be to qualify and then once you get that designation? Is my understanding the federal procurement standard if you have a product that is Performs equally and is priced equally. I think that gives you a competitive advantage to have your product purchased Is that is that about right? Okay Yes, so we have used that program. We you know And you didn't ask me this question, but I will mention sure We were looking to expand in two more states here the next few years with with one of our products And we're working with a large company right now that has a crop that they want to commercialize That's right now landscaping plants similar to the way miscanthus was and they're looking at a you know 50,000 acre project The technology has already been worked out the end buyers worked out the question is how do you? How do you plant 50,000 acres of a crop that hasn't been you know hasn't been a crop yet? So But that's again. This is happening because they've observed our work and we've been working there for a couple years and Again B cap has generated these other opportunities Great Yeah, I've seen that. I don't know if you've been in the stores Sometimes I get very excited. I see the bio preferred label on cleansers or all kinds of different products So it's exciting to see that label grow Maybe someday it'll be just like the organics label that would be great, but are there any other questions from the audience? Well with that I would like to give a round of applause for our speakers. Thank them for joining us here today


Hey guys real estate game here today. We're gonna be playing escape prison. I'll be and I'm here with my friend cool Brad Brad and Twitter and this cute little teddy bear right here. I don't know his name his name is mr. Fluffy I don't know but let's begin Okay Hey, what's up? Be calm. You thinking cool with the shades, huh? Wait. It looked pretty cool. Actually, okay? Let's begin. Hey, hey, let's make our escape. Okay, but first let me take a poopy Oh Twitter Twitter, please don't smell this. Oh, you can see the green farts coming out Okay. Oh, there's a soda machine. I want me some cola. Okay. Let's escape out of here so we can go grab a cola cool Bam-Bam. Oh God, oh what we have construction helmets on Okay, awesome. We have to be careful for the falling rocks. So watch out for the falling rocks. You must time it Okay, let's be careful here Oh They wear the falling rocks hat Looks like the glitchy. Oh God. Okay. We made it. Oh, no, Brad Brad got smashed by the rocks. Oh No, that's so terrible I'm right here Brad Brad. Don't worry.  Oh, no. We're the sewers now Hopefully, there's no poopy around here because then it's gonna get really stinky. Oh Okay, be careful with all this toxic. Oh, no, look at this We have to cross this while these things move and be careful not to fall into the toxic. Oh, Brad Brad No, he's trying to walk along the line Okay, let's do this the right way. Oh Okay That wasn't so hard actually Easy Okay, Brad back. Come on. I'll meet you up here, bro To say a splat gaming But let's get me. Oh, Brad bans racing with that girl. Oh It was a tie. They made it at the same time Okay, now what we have to wait for these to stop shooting water be careful Brad Brad. Oh God No, don't jump over it. Oh, why would you know Brad Brad? What happened? You're doing fine.  Oh, what is a raft. No wait for me It took off without us. How can you do this to us? Okay Let's wait for the next raft to come here Okay, but let's get ready. So this girl will take it from us. Oh wait. Look there's twins. What I think this is a set up Brad Brad. Oh, no, Brad Brad. Oh, he made it. How it looked like he was floating. Oh She why did she go in there now? She's stuck Look at her. Bye. Oh, no. Oh, maybe the badges in there that wouldn't be a cool place to put the badge, right? Hmm. Hopefully it wasn't because I would have not want to miss it Actually, let's try to look for the secret badge. I'm gonna try to find it as we play Oh god, be careful with the lights. We don't want to be spotted Brad Brad. We have to avoid the lights Okay, I love how I died. I would just wasn't paying attention and I kept walking forward Oh god, like Brad Brad's dancing Okay, we're going to need something to give us a boost something lower like your bald head. Oh, no, what? I'm pretty sure we're supposed to jump off his bald head What is going wait what did Brad Brad make it I think he jumped on her head I have to wait for one of the twin girls Thank you twin girls for helping me get across We're just gonna leave them back there. I mean it's like we can help them anymore Okay, we open the oh the solid machine kick the cream but it color the color will make it run faster and What will make you run faster for harder jumps? Okay, give me my soda. Give me my cola Look like Pepsi, but okay, I guess it's a cola. Oh, we've got the speedy Okay, this looks a bit well a bit too far too clear. We need something that will give us a boost. Oh Okay, so it takes long after I jack my cola, so you're supposed to drink the cola right away and Then jump it. Okay, gravity color. How much is the gravity car? Dang? I spent on my real bucks yesterday on that on that Tiffany Mayumi Tiffany Mayumi, I don't know if you guys saw that video That video was insane Tiffany Mayumi is nobody to mess with she'll be she'll keep coming after you. She doesn't give up easily a little brand brand My brand I'm gonna have to get out of here before the cops come get us Before they figure out we're trying to escape. No Come on. No, you forgot to jump you had it brand brand Okay, oh god, let's just say watch out for those tazer shots.   Don't worry Okay on this week for this guy to shoot his tazer. Oh god. Oh No, don't do it. You're gonna get shocked. What she just walked straight through it How is that possible? I bet you're fine. We've done that. I would have got a tazer right away Oh, we need more cola those thugs over there. Look me. Oh, yeah, you want to fight me thugs? Oh God But it was supposed to do What thugs? I don't see any thugs. Oh these I Think they're supposed. Oh, no. He beat up mr. Polarized or splat gaming Wow and the cop isn't doing anything about it. I think they're supposed to fight. Oh, I Think they're supposed to fight us, but he's stuck on the fence. That's why he's not moving. Oh god. Oh No, let's go again It looks like one of the the twins left us behind. Oh, no, okay Let's go. I want to play basketball. Oh, you can't even play basketball man Hey, mr. Polarized, you just got beat up back there. I'm stuck. I'm sorry brand brand, but I have to keep moving Oh god, oops, I'm sorry Okay, what? What are we supposed to do here go up this way? I'm just following these guys Let's just go. Oh, she has a key in her hand Hey The roof is slippery. So what out for?  Oh, oh Isn't that the same music from the oh, there's a shot can come and grab it. Oh, we can't Isn't this the same song from the bowling one? Oh Be careful with the poop. No, we don't want to step on the pooping. What I Didn't even touch it.  Oh god. Yes, we got through it. Well, no, we need to get one through one more Come on. We're almost there. Nice. Oh, and if this jacket actually like flew man, that would be so epic factsly how does Jetpack backpack. Oh Okay, the water is boiling hot. How are we going to avoid it? Oh, I'm guessing by leaving Oh, are we supposed? Oh, we're supposed to drink a cola. Oh God Okay, let's see how this thing goes. Oh Yes, we made it. It's not so hard. I get to do a time it actually I just make sure You don't jump too fast No, we're going back to the restroom. Oh No, don't tell me we're gonna go into the sewers now.  Come on Okay, oh that one had good. Look at that one. I'm stinky Has green fumes coming out of it Where we supposed to go We're supposed to go on the rest of the toilet. Oh God, now they're all smelly. Come on. Who's think up the rest man. That's not cool That one had peeing in I just stepped all over it. Isn't that great? So nasty, okay What do we do here? Are we stuck in this level? Do we go? No, how come nothing is happening? What is going on? If you were supposed to fall through a toilet. Oh There what how come it didn't work the first time I just stepped on it and nothing happened That was so weird You got to fix the toilets man somebody call a janitor over because these toilets ain't working. Oh Okay, now I think we're finally out of the prison. Yes freedom It says yes, we made it out, but we sent it across the river somehow Okay, so I see trucks on the other side. I assume There's a parking lot or like car somewhere Where we can get one an escape Take your time Your time don't rush Sorry you guys responding to cool brand man. I think he's still stuck on that level What level right? Oh He's on level 12. I Forgot what level I was. Oh God, okay. Oh, I was right Here are the trucks Oh god, no these things are so hard to control They're so fast Okay, we have to cross you have to jump in here goes nothing. Oh Yes, we made it Okay, not where do we go? Oh? We made it out of that prison Finally, we're home We're home, okay For a prison use the plan use the path for that I use the past to explore the cars to drive around the city give me my badge, but I Never did the zombie. Why did I get a badge man come on? At least you can drive a car isn't that awesome We all got these cars so hard to to control it and move like so fast. Oh god Can we just take us anywhere? Does it does it? Oh, no, it doesn't come out Twitter.  I think yep. He did with the shotgun Oh, oh god. Thank you guys for watching. Thank you guys for the major support, and I will see you guys next time


a couple different games to talk about. We've got Far Cry 3. Far Cry 3, that's right. We've got a whole bunch of footage from that that is actually me playing the game. What else? We've got Path of Exile. And that one is? Basically it's like Diablo 2. Oh, like the Diablo 2, okay. And we also have the unfinished swan. That's another PS3 game. It's on the PSN network. It's a short sort of playable storybook game, but it's a little more than that. We'll talk about that one. And what else are we going to take? We're going to show a trailer, right? I'm going to be showing the trailer for Planet Side 2. Planet Side 2. And then if we have time, maybe we'll sneak in something about mobile gaming, but we had a pretty packed show today. So the first game we'll talk about is Far Cry 3. So I went out and got this game probably a month after it came out or so. And I like it a lot. It's an open world sandbox game. And as you'll be able to see here in the footage we've got, you can even switch to our, we even have a camera that's like built into the screen here, which you might not look like it, but if you switch to it, we'll put some video in there. So this game is pretty cool. It's a sandbox game, a sandbox shooter. So it's a first person. And you are with your college buddies and your skydiving in the South Pacific for some whatever adventure. And you wind up skydiving into the wrong place. This is what happens. And you get kidnapped by pirates. And there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on on this island and different factions of pirates running around. And you need to rescue all your friends who have also been abducted by various bands of pirates on the island. It could all be one band. I don't know. I just shoot anybody that looks like a pirate. It's what it boils down to. But you can grab vehicles and drive around. And as you'll see, you'll see me here driving around all over the place. And you can see that the world is really huge. It just goes on and on and on. I think I got in a vehicle and I drove around for 20 minutes and didn't even cover part of one little section of the island that I was on. You can also get into hang gliders.  There was some mention in the challenges or something that if I wingsuited over to somewhere, I would get some sort of bonus. I haven't seen a wingsuit, but I assume that there is one somewhere. There you can see, here I am on the top of a ridge of a mountain. And I am getting ready to plunge down and take out some bad guys. So you'll see I'm coming over here and there's one of the gliders up ahead that I've been referring to. And I'm going to get in this glider and I'm going to go down there. And you can see there's wildlife. So there's birds flying around all over the place. Now I've got my, this is a silenced machine gun. So that area out there in the distance, that's actually places you can get to. And now I'm checking the map. So right here where it's red in the middle, that's an outpost of pirates.  And most of the things that you gather in this game are actually pretty functional. I don't know if I got in there, but anyway, if we got it, we'll edit it in showing me going to make stuff out of like, you kill people and you get the leather, or not people, but you kill animals and you can use the leather to create harnesses and stuff for your weapons. So you can see this world is enormous. There I am scrolling all around on the map and huge as Jeff says. And now when you zoom in, you see more details.  I'm going to be going down in there. A lot of this footage is really long, so we'll just skip ahead here to a part where I am actually shooting and killing some guys. I think this entire video that I took is like an hour. So you can imagine that just in one hour, I was able to do tons of different things. So I'll back it up a little bit and from here we'll play. If you don't have any kind of fast scrub on this, oops, now I switched to the videos completely. I'm actually looking at this on my iPhone as you're watching it at home doing it. So it's a different kind of control scheme. Well, we'll edit this part out. All right, so now I'm picking up the glider. Here's the part we want.  And I'll go down and we can cut back. We are here in the studio. So there's the base below me. You can see in the distance, there's other smoke stacks, smoke columns or whatever. Each of those designates a pirate base. So when you start the game, you'll see stuff in the distance all over. There are also radio towers in this game. And if you climb up the radio tower and disable the jamming devices, it will reveal a section of the map. So all together in the first part of the game, there's 18 radio towers. It mentions that there's about 32 pirate bases. There's tons of little sort of artifacts you can collect. And the more you collect things, the more recipes that you can unlock, which you can use then to make syringes. So there are all kinds of different power-ups that you can create. So you see me there plunging a health vial into my arm because I kind of fell out of the glider a little too early. There's skills that you can improve. So as you gain experience, you can learn how to take down guys from below and silently kill them. You can run further. You can get more health out of each thing that you squirt into your arm. There's all kinds of tactical situations. You can stealth kill.  You can do power slides up to people. You can sneak through the bushes and stealth kill people. There's all kinds of civilians on the island that if you help them out and do little quests with them, you'll go on little adventures and experience. There's cave networks all over the place.  Maybe we'll show some footage of the sharks. There's crocodiles, which I didn't even know about. So one day I was in this river swimming along and all of a sudden this crocodile grabs me and we have this big old tussle.  Bam, take the crock out. But you have to do kind of a quick time events, a hit buttons to do that. Anyway, and then there's the story. You know, obviously there's the story missions in this game. So I've been playing this game for a long time in the weekend. I sat down relaxed with it for a few hours and it's like Skyrim but with guns. And in a lot of some ways it's better than Skyrim because it feels, well, I don't know, that's I guess an objective opinion because I like action stuff. But Skyrim after a while, the environments kind of started to feel the same. The dungeons you went in and stuff kind of started looking. But in this game, maybe because it's a more realistic environment, it seems like there's a lot of variety. The radio towers are not all cookie cutters, although they're the same. How you climb up each one is totally different. They've weathered them differently, put different junk. Every little town is slightly different layouts. The caves are all different. So it's pretty amazing and I don't even, I think I'm not even halfway through the game yet. And I've been playing for, I don't know, probably like at least 30 hours into the game, 40 hours into the game. So Far Cry 3, there's also multiplayer online. I haven't even touched that. There is co-op that you can play with other people. And I think they have some downloadable content already as well. The game has monkeys, as leopards, tigers, which you don't want to run into, even with a machine gun, because for some reason these are very, very tough tigers. So the first time you get, you hear that growl in the bushes run. That's my advice. So anyway, Far Cry 3, I definitely recommend it if you are into shooters or into any kind of sandbox. So I would say a game that's similar to this, if you, if you have played them, the mercenaries games, just cause games. I'm not sure what other ones that are out there, but imagine infamous with guns or something like that or prototype with guns as opposed to superpowers. But Far Cry 3, I think is definitely a very well done game. And the graphics are very nice. You have sunsets, tropical, beautiful tropical sunsets, probably cut one of those in. The original crisis was on an island. The original crisis was on an island. And you know, it's got physics and everything.  In the day I blew up a pack of dogs for some mission. These were rabid bad dogs, not the nice puppy kind. And just one of them goes flying, flying through the air. It was hilarious. So it's pretty cool. I like it. Although the one thing I don't like, the main character that you play, like, he's kind of a wuss. Like he gets tougher and you know, he gets tattoos on him. But if you see the graphics on him for a moment, maybe it's just the ps3, kind of looks, you know, like, I didn't feel like I was empathizing with him. Sure, the situation, his older brother was more of a dude's dude. This guy's kind of like, I don't want to say any bad language, but whatever. He could use some toughening up in a new hairstyle. That's all I got to say. Maybe I shouldn't talk, but I'm growing this here for a good cause. All right, so let's take a little break. We'll see a little bit of Planet Side 2. And then when we come back, Bryce will tell you about Path of Exile. That was pretty awesome, Bryce. That was Planet Side 2. Yeah. Pretty sick looking. I'm hoping. Pretty good, yeah. Wish I could play it. Now, you heard the rumor that, like, this thing was so advanced, right? It couldn't run on any computer at full quality currently. I still don't think they fixed that. Well, you know, they got their new ps4 coming out soon. We just heard that announcement not too long ago that ps4 will probably be launching this fall. And their idea of a reasonable price, the rumor is now like 500 or 400 something, which to me is still too much money, but they're claiming they saved a lot of money by not building factories for all the chips this time around because they're going with an AMD 8-core processor. Just good that they're going with AMD. Yeah, I think they can get at a decent price and everything. So we'll see. It's actually, 8 cores is about the same as what they have with the cell, except that each of these cores is actually a full-on CPU core and not a limited stream processor. I think the cell things are SIMD maybe. Anyway, won't get into that. So that's Planet Side 2. So maybe it'll look super awesome when it comes out on the ps4. Do they have any plan to port it? I think so. In fact, I think that they've been actually working on the ps4 a lot longer in terms of software. So to me, it sounds like they're planning on having a very strong launch lineup compared to the previous launches of say the PS1 through the PS3 where they would launch and they'd have like one maybe good game flagship game and then the other games were really weak and you had to wait like six months or a year for a good game to come out as people got used to programming it. But it sounds like this time around they've planned far in advance and they're going to have a lot of high quality games right when they launch, which would be, I'd say if they had six quality games when they launch, that'd probably be the strongest launch of any console ever. Most consoles when they launch usually only have one or two good games and then they have a bunch of guys who are jumping on the bandwagon earlier. I got to remember that our audience is up in the camera lens. They're hidden in that camera and not down on that. I'm going to turn this off down here so we don't get too distracted by that. All right, we can edit that part out. Should we? I don't know. All right, so Bryce, you checked out this game called Path of Exile. Path of Exile. So why don't you tell us a little bit about Path of Exile? Okay, so Path of Exile is a game that's, oh my god, let me cut it to me. Path of Exile is a game, it's pretty much, it's a lot like Diablo or I guess Diablo II and it's in the way that it's played. It's an action RPG. You play as a character. You can cast spells and the character that I'm playing is an archer right now. So that's really nice. I like bow characters. Oh yeah, that's what I did in Skyrim. I ran around with the bow and all these stealth enhancements and basically you like some kind of medieval sniper. I've got like a split arrow thing where I can split three arrows and they go off into it. It's like a shotgun bow. So the arrows actually target different people?  Nice spray. Yeah. Kind of interesting that sounds like something you'd see in a crazy manga. Yeah and then the nice thing about this game is that they're about, it's got a nice skill tree with about 1500 skills or so. Wait a minute 1500? Yeah maybe it's like 1100 but it's somewhere. So how long would, I mean is this a game that's meant to be played like a Skyrim where you're playing for like 100 or 200 hours or so it's a really deep game. It's a pretty, it's in beta right now so. Oh it's not even. Not even out. More than the time I was playing it. It wasn't, I don't know, I haven't been on the computer. That's right because my PC is broken right now guys. I've been playing games. Well I actually, in the time since we did the first segment in Farc right there, I finished it. Definitely worth picking up. I did enjoy it. So Path of Exile, so that's available on Steam? No it's available on their website. Oh so this is an indie game? Would you say? Yeah it's a very indie game. And now, and it's a first person? No it's a top, oh top down. Exactly like Diablo style game. Oh that's right. Or Torchlight. Torchlight or the old, the old D&D like Neverwinner and Planescape and stuff like that. Although those were sort of Tile 2D type games. I think all kinds of games are probably going to be making a comeback because pretty much they've done everything they can as far as engines go. So what else are we going to talk about today? So Path of Exile we know is definitely worth checking out if you're into RPGs. So the other game we're going to talk about today is the Unfinished Swan. This is available on PSN for the PS3. It is a sort of an, I wouldn't say it's an indie game because it's Santa Monica Studios which is sort of the indie division of Sony. Sony's gaming companies. Man I can't even remember what they're called. But anyway Sony Computer Entertainment I guess is what it is and it's their sort of indie division. And so Santa Monica is the studio that kind of oversees and helps supervise the production of games like Journey and Flow and sort of the more unusual creative artsy games that you'll see on PSN.    Why is there a swan in my room?  And you wind up in this world that is completely white. And now I'm back on it. You wind up in this world that's completely white and by taking your paintbrush and splattering black ink all over or paint, depends it looks like ink, suddenly it hits the walls and various objects that are there but they're all white and you couldn't see them before. So it's like you're making the world appear before you by painting it. And so you start exploring and you come across a little pond and you find a castle and you're like well you better invest to get the castle and all along you're following these yellow footprints that are kind of paint splatters like this shape that the swan has left behind. See I haven't even got my my hands in the correct there. So it's really kind of cool. And as you can see here you know in the footage that it's like it's a really neat effect. And as the game progresses you can now start doing other things besides ink so at a certain point it'll start splattering water all over the place. When you splatter water it'll make say there's a plant all of a sudden a plant if you splatter water it'll grow. It'll follow where you're going with the water and I don't want to say too much more than that because as the game goes on more and more it gets revealed. And you kind of discover about your history and your mother's history and all these different things that are going on all the while trying to you know figure out where is this unfinished swan trying to lead me.  But I found it very entertaining. The game I think anticipates your reactions pretty well because there were definitely times where I was like just like wow and then all of a sudden the character in the game would go wow like right at that moment too and I'm like wow they knew. They knew I would say wow. Yeah and then the character said wow you said wow and it was just like an endless cycle of wow's. No but you know I mean so it's it's very interesting that they they were trying to go for these emotional moments and in fact it worked because and that happened more than once and it wasn't just me saying oh if I say wow now is he gonna say wow it just it was very natural. Yeah because the graphics were really even though they're very simple they're very impressive. So I liked it a lot. There were sort of like little vague reminders of and I'm not saying these are sort of what do you call them downsides. They're not Easter eggs or attributes too but like I was sort of reminded a little bit of psycho knots and moments in there and some other games that were platformers. I wouldn't say this is a platformer more like maybe a little bit of a puzzler. Very enjoyable and a really unique look and you know the game is on PSN it's not that expensive so I would say the unfinished one is definitely worth checking out if you are looking for an afternoon of entertainment and it's totally you know appropriate for all ages.  It is a motion enabled game and we might even have a little bit here of me trying to calibrate the the the motion sensor which was not very instinctual. I would say it was easy enough to do but there wasn't a button that said okay I'm done so I would line it all up and then somehow I would wind up resetting it and having to do it again because there was no obvious like okay I'm ready to go into the game. That was the only flaw in the game was I think the motion calibration could have been clarified a little bit. Well once you had that motion controller clarified you could throw with a paint like this and that and you would throw the paint out. It's very cool and it works with a regular controller if you don't have the motion. So that's the unfinished lawn and I think we have that's that's the show yeah that's the show. All right so that wraps up episode we're we're thinking that was number six and we will be back much quicker with another episode because game developers conference is going on right now and man there's a lot of stuff coming out. Oh yeah announcements everywhere plus there's new games we've been playing.