Up until now most of the debate about biofuels has centered on the inefficiencies of corn-based ethanol vs. the promise of biobutanol and cellulosic ethanol.  As reported in the New York Times, however, two recent studies indicate that biofuel production in and of itself is more harmful to the environment than conventional fossil fuels:

“Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these ‘green’ fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.

“These studies for the first time take a detailed, comprehensive look at the emissions effects of the huge amount of natural land that is being converted to cropland globally to support biofuels development.

“The destruction of natural ecosystems — whether rain forest in the tropics or grasslands in South America — not only releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere when they are burned and plowed, but also deprives the planet of natural sponges to absorb carbon emissions. Cropland also absorbs far less carbon than the rain forests or even scrubland that it replaces.

“Together the two studies offer sweeping conclusions: It does not matter if it is rain forest or scrubland that is cleared, the greenhouse gas contribution is significant. More important, they discovered that, taken globally, the production of almost all biofuels resulted, directly or indirectly, intentionally or not, in new lands being cleared, either for food or fuel.”

You can read the full article here.  This is by no means a justification of continuing our dependence on oil.  But in the rush to develop alternatives it is good to remember that sometimes technology bites back, and that the most direct and immediate solution may not, in the long run, prove the most appropriate choice.

Earlier this week NorTech released a report that analyzes and monitors emerging trends in Northeast Ohio’s high tech sector between 2004 and 2006. Major findings from the report indicate that the high-tech sector in Northeast Ohio began to experience some gains between 2004 and 2006 after several years of decline…….

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From the Columbus Dispatch:

You’ve heard the numbers: Ohio has lost more than 200,000 manufacturing jobs so far this decade.

But state officials say many of those could be replaced by 2030 if Ohio’s manufacturing strength can be tapped in the cause of renewable energy.

“This is one of our best bets, particularly on the manufacturing side,” said Mark Barbash, chief economic-development officer for the state Department of Development.

“It also offers the opportunity for additional research and development jobs.”

You can read the rest of the story here, courtesy of Crain’s.

Like we said, Shift Happens.  But it might be Generation Q that makes it happen…what do you think?

Timing is everything, it seems, and right on the heels of our last post comes this from Energy Central News:

“When 1,800 workers lost their jobs after a Maytag appliance factory and headquarters closed last year in the small town of Newton, Iowa, a wind-turbine-blade company saw opportunity — an available, skilled work force in the middle of one of America’s hardiest wind energy production regions.

“TPI Composites Inc. is building a new plant there as the energy industry aims for a cleaner, more sustainable future. With proper incentives, thousands of “green-collar jobs” could be created, from ethanol production to wind turbines and solar panels, and all the maintenance and construction to support them, industry officials said.

“TPI used to build boats, but switched to turbines in 2001 for the “major growth opportunity,” said Steve Lockard, chief executive officer of the company, based in Phoenix. The idea, he said, is to “transform the work force away from the Maytag-type jobs of the past into jobs that can withstand the test of time going forward.”

“However, advocates and executives say training is key to making sure the industry has enough skilled workers to make it into a real economic engine and are pushing for more lucrative tax breaks, much like oil companies already receive, to make it profitable.”

The rest of the article is onmy available to registered users, but the implications for Northeast Ohio should be clear–as we move ahead with the offshore feasibility study, we already know we have a strong wind manufacturing components industry here.  Maybe it’s time to ramp up our efforts to establish Northeast Ohio as a major wind manufacturing center, from components through finished products.

Two of Northeast Ohio’s major economic development organizations, NorTech, the Northeast Ohio Technology Coalition, and MAGNET, the Manufacturing Advocacy & Growth Network are working together on a program designed to stimulate innovation and growth in the region’s small and midsize manufacturing companies.

Called the Innovation Accelerator, the program seeks to engage manufacturers looking to grow their business by adding new products and services, leveraging ideas from employees, vendors, customers and competitors and exploring new technologies capable of making their products stronger and more effective.

On February 7, the Innovation Accelerator will be holding a launch program at the DoubleTree Hotel in Independence, OH.  Click here to learn more and to register for this event.

What is the single most important rate-limiting factor when it comes to economic development?

If you live in Northeast Ohio and have been following the Avon exchange controversy, you might think it was highways and roads.  Proponents argued the new highway exchange will be a much needed stimulus to the economy; opponents argued that it contributes to sprawl and negatively affects efforts to revitalize downtown.

Both arguments contain some truth–and yet both also miss the single most important factor that enables economic development to occur in the first place:  access to cheap, potable water.  There could be no economic development in the area surrounding the Avon exchange if there weren’t also easy access to abundant fresh water.

Why was it that places like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and even Chattanooga became major industrial centers?  Water.  And lots of it. 

Most attention these days is placed on developing alternative energy resources, yet even here water plays a critical role.  Water plays a major role in removing carbon from the atmosphere.  The quality of our water has been adversely affected by the choices we’ve made with respect to the fuels and other energy sources we use.

(Historical note with no small amount of irony: When Rockefeller first set up shop in Cleveland he developed a process for extracting kerosene, the fuel of the day, from oil.  A by-product of the cracking process was gasoline.  Since there was no use for gasoline at the time, Rockefeller and team simply dumped the gasoline into the Cuyahoga River…)

Everything eventually comes back to water.  Our manufacturing processes depend heavily on water, and in the process have damaged the quality of our water, air, and land.  Precipitation draws pollutants out of the air and puts them into our water table.  It also pulls them out of the ground and deposits them in our rivers and streams.

We certainly can and need to develop alternative fuels–indeed, we have to if we want to survive–but what we can’t develop is an alternative to water.

As a result Northeast Ohio has two critically important assets that, despite continued industrial use, are woefully underutilized: Lake Erie, part of the chain of lakes that make up the largest remaining source of surface fresh water in the world (the five lakes combined account for nearly 20% of the world’s surface fresh water), and the Cuyahoga River Valley watershed–once the source of late night TV jokes but today one of the most important watershed testbeds in the world.

In our 2005 report on the possible futures Northeast Ohio might face, green/sustainable systems and new energy sources were identified as key global drivers of importance to the region.  Increasingly, access to fresh water is becoming a key driver for other regions around the world.  While we currently explore the feasibility of offshore wind as one possible energy solution, have demonstration solar setups at the Great Lakes Science Center and Progressive Field, have projects in the Valley focused on fuel cells, green bulkheads, alternative storm water treatments, and even a nanotechnology-based filtration company in the region, we don’t have a highly visible, focused effort around fresh water issues and solutions.

With the Port of Cleveland contemplating a move–the kind of thing that happens in a region once every hundred years or so at best–with a LEED certified development going up in the Flats District, the potential to develop offshore fresh water wind in Lake Erie, with the 50th anniversary of the river catching fire coming up in just over a decade, and with the region as a whole sitting right on the edge of the shallowest of the Great Lakes with one of the three most critical dead zones in the country, the opportunities for Northeast Ohio to be the testbed for critical fresh water research and solutions development is enormous.  

And this is the most important economic development lesson I learned from my visit to Chattanooga.  Water–access to it, its quality, and how it is used–is the single most critical factor to the amount of productive economic development that can take place in a region.  Does that mean I think we should run out and build an aquarium? No, but we should learn from the Tennessee Aquarium’s efforts to focus on the freshwater econsystem and the watersheds that run from Chattanooga down to the Gulf. 

While fresh water fish will always be fascinating to flyfishers like me, they don’t make for the most exciting aquarium exhibits, and so Chattanooga had to build on a salt water addition so people could see “all the pretty colors.” Given Chattanooga’s emphasis on developing downtown as a tourism destination, this made sense.  The same for their River Walk, which is far more people-friendly than our Towpath Trail, with well-designed convenience centers that incorporate recycled materials from the region’s major industries every two miles, and exceptionally good signage that ties the city’s industrial past to its present and future direction. 

We should certainly do more with design than we do (another of the key global drivers identified in the 2005 report), plagued as we are with a plethora of Soviet-era style architecture that is almost as much of a turn off in our wonderful summers as it is in our more Soviet-like winters. But the main things I took away from Chattanooga that are important to Cleveland are the following:

We know we need to boost the amount of R&D that takes place in our region.  We also need to pay greater attention to design as well.  The two can be done together.

We know water is the ultimate rate-limiting factor on economic development and that, while we have it in abundance today, tomorrow may well be a different story.

We know that water touches or is touched nearly every major sustainable technology in some way or another: nutrient loading from and diversions for agricultural use and neighborhood development; pollution from industrial processes; dredging to keep shipping channels open; green bulkheads to help repopulate depleted fish stocks; permeable concrete to minimize stormwater runnoff; filtration to remove contaminants; alternative energy that uses offshore wind and water movement to generate clean power; diminishing sources of fresh, clean drinking water sufficient to support growing populations…the list goes on and on.

And so it isn’t an aquarium we need, but rather a Fresh Water Institute–not a building, but a way of organizing and increasing the amount of academic research that takes place here focused on near shore and watershed loading issues in Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga, things that have universal applicability and growing importance over time.  An organization that is able to focus attention on that research and raise its visibility the way Woods Hole and Scripps do for oceanic research.  But even more the organizational capacity to convert what we learn from this increased academic research into commercial solutions that serve the global marketplace but are based here in Northeast Ohio. 

We also need to make sure that as part of the marketing and educational pieces of this Institute that the public outreach and K-12 educational components are thoroughly integrated, so that people in the community understand the importance of these resources and our children grow up with an enthusiasm for both water and the science of making sure there will be enough fresh water for all of us in the future.

Lastly, because so much depends on how we use this essential resource, having a policy group within the Institute–a mix of legal, research, commercial, and governmental expertise–is essential.  It not only can help change how we use water here, but how water is used around the world, and it also helps to elevate the visibility of both the research and the commercial development occuring in the region.  Not to mention reinforcing the image of Cleveland as a “Green City on a Blue Lake,” an attractive, clean place to live and raise a family.

There were lots of other lessons I learned in Chattanooga, but for purposes of the economic development in Northeast Ohio, this is it: make better use of water as the key factor necessary for robust, successful economic development.

Readers of TechFutures know that I have high admiration for Jim Russell at Burgh Diasporah.  The “Cleveburgh” connection can and should be one of the first to break down the completely man-made and artificial borders that have become barriers to our region’s revitalization.

Readers will know doubt also recall my extreme admiration for Harvard’s Ed Glaeser and the simply brilliant work he has done on the economics of geography. 

Since his talk at the Federal Reserve Bank here in Cleveland, Ed has been traveling about the region given more talks.  Jim picked up on my original post and responded at his site on April 16, but if you click here and scroll down (then read up from the 16th until the 23d) you’ll be doing yourself and the region a big favor–now, this is the kind of conversation we need to have taking place here in the Great Lakes region!

From The Chronicle-Telgram this morning comes this news:

“Lorain County’s manufacturing past elevated it to the No. 2 spot on a list of counties with the most potential to benefit from a push for renewable energy technology.

“Only Cuyahoga County ranked above it in a report by the Renewable Energy Policy Project that was released Wednesday.”

You can argue about the meaning of independence in an increasingly interdependent world, but in this case you’d be missing the point: Northeast Ohio is incredibly well-positioned, precisely because of our manufacturing history to make the transition–and it is a true transition, not just a retreat into our past or a reliance on our existing industries–to being a leader in renewable energy.

Click here to read the complete report for yourself.

From BioEnterprise:

 Aeromics, a biotechnology company founded at Yale, is the latest in a series of companies moving to Cleveland in conjunction with star faculty recruitments by Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals.  Other recent biotech relocations include Retinagenix and Polgenix (both from Seattle) and Thromgen (from Ann Arbor).Click here to read more.

* * *

IBF Conferences and BioEnterprise are proud to present the 2nd Annual Global Healthcare Investing Conference, scheduled for April 30-May 1, 2008 in Cleveland, Ohio.

Click here for more information.

Annette Ballou
BioEnterprise Corporation
(216) 658-4525

Jim Russell over at Burg Diaspora has become one of my favorite bloggers.  Though we’ve yet to meet in person we’ve spoken on the phone and exchanged ideas and links a number of times.  We don’t always agree 100% on everything, but we do agree on the role of the Diaspora in economic development.

Now, neither Jim nor I are talking about the “classic” Diaspora, in which the Jews were exiled from Judea by the Babylonians in 586 BCE (finally my religious studies degree comes in handy!!!).  Rather, when Jim uses the term–and when I “borrow” it from him–we are talking about the general concept of people with an attachment to a place who are now scattered about in other places, some by “force” (job loss), others by choice (perceived opportunities elsewhere). 

It is a counterintuitive and controversial idea to think that diaspora is a good thing for a region, but in fact it is.  The more people outside a place who share a tie *to* a place, the more likely it is that those people can be called upon to help support the region and its up-and-coming generations.  For proof of that you can look back in history to the original Diaspora, and the support networks that exist outside of Israel that still feel strong ties to a desire to support the development of this geographic place.

So what’s got me going on this topic today?  A call from OSTN, the Open Student Television Network, which is based here in Cleveland.  OSTN distrubutes college student produced television content.  Things like Harvard University’s student-produced soap opera, “Ivory Towers.”  In October of this year they will be holding a conference in Cleveland to bring together student content producers from around the country.  They asked us if we knew of any former Clevelanders who had “made it” in film, television, or music and who would hold an appeal to college students today.

I’ll confess that at 50 and having been out of the business for more than a decade, I’m probably not the best person to answer that question.  But it seems to me there are two types of people OSTN really needs to reach out to–up and coming actors, writers, producers, directors and musicians who are part of the Cleveland diaspora, and successful actors, writers, producers, etc. who might serve as mentors for others in Northeast Ohio today (and yes, I’m using those two phrases, “Cleveland” and “Northeast Ohio” interchangably).

In the latter category several people come to mind: Chrissie Hynde of The Pretenders, who just opened a vegetarian restaurant in her home town of Akron;  Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO, another Akronite, who today produces and scores for TV in Los Angeles (in fact, he did the music for most of the Disney shows I worte for); Parma’s own Drew Carey whose clout in LA is still huge, and who has a reputation (I don’t know if it is deserved) of helping others grab hold of that first slippery rung in Hollywood.  And of course there’s Halle Berry, Anne Heche, and the brilliant and still extremely powerful Toni Morrison…

And since this is a tech site, I ought to throw in at least one techie whose equipment just might play a role in helping to distribute new forms of media–Cisco’s John Chambers.  And since I’m also a big foodie and think of food as an art form, let’s not forget home-grown and still local Iron Chef Michael Symon and the brilliant if mostly behind-the-scenes food writer Michael Ruhlman…given the success of the Food Channel, why wouldn’t OSTN team up with some talented college kids and Michaels Symon and Ruhlman to make a food show for college kids?

There are plenty more out there who could serve as mentors, and plenty of up-and-coming members of the Cleveland (and Pittsburgh) diaspora who should participate in OSTN’s upcoming conference.  But I’ll have to leave it to the younger, more connected crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings out there (all too young probably to remember the TV show “thirtysomething“) to come up with the diaspora membership list OSTN needs to call upon.  So George, Jim, Queen of the Girl Geeks, Cleveland Foodie…what do you think?
 

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