Newsletter from March 28th Meeting
We had no visiting Rotarians and had three guests.
REMINDER: We are packing food boxes at NW Harvest for the students. Be there at 6pm.
NEW MEMBER: We ushered in a new/returning member, Steve Brashears. He shared with us his experience as a mentor when he was previously with our club. He originally would meet with the young man on Mondays and found him lethargic and almost depressed. They switched their time to Wednesday and there was a massive change in his behavior. He realized that it was because he was not eating on weekends and once he was in school for a few days and was having meals, he was a different kid. We look forward to having Steve back in the club.
MEMBERSHIP DRIVE: The Spokane Valley Club wants to join in our competition with Club 21 in recruiting new members. Remember that we need to start inviting friends and colleagues to come to meetings and see what being a Rotarian is all about. Club 21 has gone all in and is extremely serious about this completion.
5 MINUTE BIOGRAPHY SPEECH: Bill Randal, originally from the San Francisco area, shared with us that he just celebrated his 60th birthday. He was in the Air Force for six years, serving as a boom operator on the KC135 refueling mid-air. He married at 19 and had two girls. He has three grandsons in Philadelphia and a granddaughter who lives in Moscow, ID. He started into sales and in 1994, joined a mortgage company and then went to the banking industry. He currently handles mortgage loans for Global Federal Credit Union, doing re-finances and first time home buyers. For exercise, he has always played tennis and is now enjoying dancing, doing ballroom, swing and the popular Tango. He has been with our Rotary Club for 2 ½ years.
There was still no raffle winner and the pot is now just over $400
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Patricia Robinson notified us of the first annual KHQ/WorkSource Job Fair being held Aug 9th from 9-2 at the Convention Center. There is still free booth space available for companies having two or more job openings. The deadline for employers to respond is April 2nd. There will be free food and drinks. It’s a great opportunity for all of our small business owners and for job seekers alike.
Tony Baird announced that he has resigned from his position at KHQ and his new position is in sales and marketing for Zerorez Spokane. We wish him all the luck in his new endeavor.
SPEAKER:
This week’s speaker was Dr. Phil Appel, the CEO of AgEnergy, an engineering focused field residue solutions company, founded in 2010. They have a specialized field residue system that allows farmers to increase their profits while solving their field residue management issue.
Wheat farmers today have quadrupled the production of wheat, but also have four times the straw waste. Farmers fertilize more and tillage costs are up. They need something to offset their costs. Many are still using the old technology of using wood gas to run their tractors.
Their company’s target market is irrigation companies. There are 9000 pivots in Washington State and they each use four times the energy of a household. They are looking for a way to bring these reduce their power costs.
If you move wheat straw more than 20 miles from the farms, the cost outweighs what you make on the bales. So, AgEnergy introduced a field residue solution that converts field waste into energy. Now farmers can harvest their wheat straw and generate power to drive their irrigation pumps or sell it back to the grid.
When wheat crops are harvested, stubble or by-product is left behind. Also, the farmer’s yield and crop density increases each year. Rather than burning it, the farmers now pulverize biomass into the ground using large tractors with multiple tillage passes and also have to add fertilizer, at significant additional fuel and supply expense. The time and cost associated with multiple tillage passes to break down the biomass is eliminated.
Growers produce and harvest their crop and then bale the excess (above 3 tons per acre) of the residual biomass, move it from the field to the farm lot in close proximity to the residue management unit. The straw bales are then loaded onto the automatic feed conveyor once per day—where the straw is gasified and turned into electrical power. Resultant power can be used for irrigation on-site and/or fed onto the power grid. Fly ash, a stable, safe biomaterial, is the byproduct from the gasification process which is filtered out and can either be used to amend soil at the farm or used as a marketable product to the horticulture and construction industries. The Renewable Energy System (RES) produces energy from field waste and BioChar. This product can be returned to the fields, improving pH, retaining water and nutrients and improving aeration of the soil.
Besides using the waste straw, the RES can also use wood chips, cattle manure and even fish guts by using different input models. So, there is interest from the dairy industry, who is interested in using the RES to produce energy from their manure to offset costs of pasteurization.
The RES is designed to come apart, so all of the parts can eventually be replaced, ensuring 100% renewal. All the parts for the machinery are made here in Spokane and AgEnergy are doing Beta testing right now with farmers, to see how long the machines will last. Right now, their market strategy is marketing the RES locally in Whitman County and within the State. After that, they hope to go National and International. Having the RES self-contained in a standard 20’ shipping container, they will be able to eventually use them to have them aid in disaster relief, when the power system is gone. It can be used 24 hours a day and is a clean technology. We should be very proud that this company is here in Spokane and it looks like their limits are endless. As a privately owned company, their main investors are Spokane businessmen. Anyone interested further in the company were encouraged to contact Dr. Appel.