The North Dakota State University Bioenergy and Product Innovation Center (BioEPIC) is bringing a major bioeconomy conference to your community.
Growing the Bioeconomy: Solutions for Sustainability will be held Dec. 1.
Growing the Bioeconomy: Solutions for Sustainability is a 12-state alliance of simultaneous state conferences. These co-host sites will share content through high-speed communication systems to promote agriculturally based sustainable solutions for global climate change and energy supply.
You can participate in several ways: Come to Fargo to network with other participants and join the live "Advances and Breakthroughs in Biofuels" session, view the broadcast of the event on your personal computer, be part of a corporate-sponsored site or view the conference at a local broadcast site hosted by NDSU.
"This is an opportunity to participate locally in a national conference on the role of agriculture related to bioenergy and our carbon footprint," says Ken Hellevang, BioEPIC co-director.
The 2 1/2-hour morning session focuses on the potential for biochar to improve soil nutrients and assist with carbon sequestration. Biochar is a charcoallike material resulting from the chemical decomposition of condensed organic substances with heat. Biochar can draw carbon from the atmosphere and lock it in the soil for hundreds to thousands of years.
Speakers for this session include James Lovelock, one of the world's most renowned thinkers on global environmental science, and Johannes Lehmann, an associate professor of soil fertility management and soil biogeochemistry at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and co-author of "Biochar for Environmental Management: Science and Technology." Thomas Vilsack, U.S. secretary of agriculture, and Steven Chu, U.S. secretary of energy, also have been invited to address the conference.
Two options are available during each of the two-hour afternoon concurrent sessions. Session one topics are net greenhouse gas emission from biofuel systems and nontraditional feedstocks for ethanol production. Session two topics are advances and breakthroughs in biofuels (live at NDSU) and bioenergy economic and policy issues.
View the conference agenda at http://www.bioeconomyconference.org/agenda2009.
If you register by Nov. 15, the fee is $60 to participate in the conference on the NDSU campus, where you can network with NDSU researchers and other conference participants during lunch; participate in the Advances and Breakthroughs in Biofuels session live, including discussions with the speakers; and view the remaining speakers and participate in the question-and-answer sessions. The registration fee increases to $80 after Nov. 15.
The fee to view the broadcast on your personal computer is $50. Advance registration is required.
To register to participate in the conference at NDSU, go to the online registration at http://www.ndsu.nodak.edu/ndsu/bioopportunities/Bioeconomyregistration.html.
For more information listen to KFGO 790AM or email studio@kfgo.com
Source: NDSU, KFGO News Center
