Symposia/Presentations
November 8th, 2012 - Virginia Dale presented "Environmental and Socioeconomic Indicators for Bioenergy Sustainability as Applied to Short Rotation Woody Crops" at the Short Rotation Woody Crops Operation Working Group Workshop hosted by Mark Downing (ORNL) and Tim Rials (UT).
September 18, 2012 - Rebecca Efroymson presented “Sustainability Indicators for Bioenergy Systems and Applicability to Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs)” at the 12th International Symposium on Biosafety of Genetically Modified Organisms in St Louis, MO. The talk was in a session entitled “Symposium on Biofuel Crop Risk Assessment – Regulatory, Industry, and Academic Perspectives.” Rebecca participated in a panel discussion, along with the other speakers from USDA, Canadian Forest Service, Ceres, Inc., Virginia Tech University, and University of Florida.
August 5-10, 2012 – Several ORNL staff participated in the 2012 Ecological Society of America (ESA) Annual Meeting in Portland, Oregon.
- A Special Session, "A Debate on the Sustainability of Biomass Production for Energy", focueds on the proposition “Producing bioenergy can be sustainable for habitat availability and biodiversity, and can eschew the risk of new invaders.” This formal debate allowed opening statements by each of six experts, followed by rebuttals, with audience questions entertained during the final 30 minutes. The audience was polled before and after to determine the winners. H. Jager was an organizer and R. Efroymson represented the “for” position.
- Virginia Dale spoke in the Symposium "Bioenergy and Biodiversity: Oxymoron or Opportunity?" on “Environmental and socioeconomic indicators of bioenergy sustainability.”
- Keith Kline spoke on “Models, causal analysis and scientific methods for understanding land-use change (LUC) dynamics.”
Fundamental for Life: Soil, Crop and Environmental Sciences
October 16 - 19, 2011 San Antonio Texas
2011 American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America (ASA-CSSA-SSSA) International Annual Meetings in conjunction with the Canadian Society of Soil Science.
Previous Symposia
Biomass Energy Systems: Research Needs to Address Policy Issues
October 31 - November 3, 2010
Mark Downing (ORNL) and Michael Casler (Agricultural Research Service [ARS] Research Geneticist, Madison, Wisconsin) organized a symposium, Biomass Energy Systems: Research Needs to Address Policy Issues, at the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America (ASA-ASSA-CSSA) Joint Convention in Long Beach, CA.
Presentations Included:
- Are Our Research Needs Driving Policy? or Is Policy Driving Our Research? given by Mark Downing.
- Bioenergy Research and Strategic Planning: The Need for Both Proactive and Reactive Research given by Robert Mitchell, USDA-ARS; Kenneth Vogel, USDA-ARS.
- The Tyranny of Big Ideas in Environmental Policy given by Alan Lucier, National Council for Air and Stream Improvement (NCASI).
- TNC Perspective given by Jimmie Powell, The Nature Conservancy (TNC)
2010 U.S. International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE) Twenty-fifth Anniversary Symposium
April 6-10, 2010
One symposium, Reshaping Landscapes: Bioenergy and Biodiversity, included a presentation by Laurence Eaton, Peter Schweizer, Rebecca Efroymson, Henriette Jager entitled, Assessing watershed benefits of bioenergy crops: Recreational and subsistence value of fishes,” and another presentation by Peter Schweizer, Henriette Jager, and Latha Baskaran entitled, “Forecasting changes in water quality and aquatic biodiversity in response to future bioenergy landscapes in the Arkansas-White-Red River basin.”
US chapter of the International Association of Landscape Ecology
- Reshaping Landscapes: Bioenergy and Biodiversity
- Reshaping Landscapes: Bioenergy and Land-use Change
- Photos
A second symposium, Reshaping Landscapes: Bioenergy and Land-use Change, included a presentation by Gbadebo Oladosu, and Keith Kline entitled, “Modeling direct and indirect effects of US bioenergy policy on global land use,” and another presentation by Keith Kline, Virginia Dale, and Gbadebo Oladosu entitled, “Models, science, and the precautionary principle: Land-use change and the sustainability of biomass systems.”
Presentations
P. Schweizer, H. Jager, L. Eaton, R. Efroymson. "Watershed valuation - understanding spatial variation in value derived from fish diversity". Presented at the 2012 Annual Symposium of the US Regional Association of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, Newport, RI.
Stephen Kaffka and Keith Kline - May 24th, 2011: Vantage Point: Views on Food, Fuel and Land Use
November 29-December 6, 2010: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) organized a study tour for approximately 30 representatives of the China National Energy Administration and Chinese bioenergy companies. Tour stops included bioenergy related sites in Nebraska, Iowa, and Tennessee and meetings with the Department of Energy (DOE) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) in Washington, D.C. Yun Wu of ORNL served as an official host and translator throughout the duration of the tour; Erin Webb co-led organization of the study tour; Becky Bowman assisted with coordination of the tour and organized Tennessee events; Robin Graham, Brian Davison, Keith Kline, and Laurence Eaton gave technical presentations highlighting ORNL bioenergy research. Other Tennessee activities for the China delegation included a tour of the DuPont Danisco biorefinery and Genera Energy switchgrass production sites in Vonore.
- ORNL Presentations
Keith Kline - May 24 2011: Bioenergy, Land-Use Change and Food Security
Kaleb Little - May 24 2011: Experts: Bioenergy leading to more efficient and environmentally friendly energy future
Stephen Kaffka - May 24 2011: National Biodiesel Board: Food and Fuel
Lawrence Eaton, et al - December 2010: The economic effects of biofuel feedstock production on gamefish distribution
‘Debo Oladosu, et al – November 2010: Empirical Analysis of the Sources of Corn Used for Ethanol Production in the United States: 2001-2009
Jonathan Overly from the East Tennessee Clean Fuels Coalition (DOE Clean Cities) gave an overview of the RFS2 standard and the implications on the use of biofuels in the US on May 14, 2010, at the National Transportation Research Center
- RFS2 – A Bridge to a More Sustainable America
