Then and Now: 120 Bioeconomy Pioneers look at yesterday, today, inspirations and challenges

Joanne Ivancic

Then: I was executive director for a local historical preservation and educational organization in Maryland, Frederick County Landmarks Foundation, getting ready for our annual Oktoberfest celebration and fundraiser at the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum, a fortified house built in 1756 during the Seven Years War/French and Indian War.

Now: ”Still an executive director of a 501(c)3 educational organization.  This time Advanced Biofuels USA which I helped found in April 2008 with Robert Kozak of Atlantic Biomass and Dr. Craig Laufer, Professor of Biology at Hood College in Frederick, Maryland.  We got it off the ground just in time for Biomass 2008, the US DOE annual meeting.

Inspirations: ABUSA advocates for the adoption of advanced biofuels as an energy security, economic development, military flexibility and climate change/pollution control solution.  Technology neutral and feedstock agnostic, it serves as a resource for opinion-leaders, decision-makers, legislators, industry professionals, investors, researchers, journalists, students and teachers. we prepare technology and policy assessments, brief government staff, participate in conferences, lecture, and provide general assistance to those interested in advanced biofuels. Technology neutral and feedstock and product agnostic, Advanced Biofuels USAs work is respected worldwide.”

“I enjoy the company of people involved in the advanced bioeconomy. I love helping those who are new to this world understand it better and find their place in it.  I especially enjoy those people who have stuck with this from the early heady days of optimism, and particularly those who worked during the Carter years on gasohol, algae development, clean air and clean water, went underground during the Reagan Years, and surfaced to help Bush 2 get us “”off our addiction to oil.””

I am inspired by those who have new ideas and find ways to make them come true.  I’ve soared at times when I’ve witnessed the indescribable joy when things go very right–like the ARA 100% biofuel military flight or LAX mixing biofuels into their fuel system or Jennifer Holmgren’s pictures of children in China’s pollution and LanzaTech’s on-the-ground implemented science to change that.

I like doing what I can to make the dreams of our best angels come true. People who don’t just talk, who DO, who persist.

Challenges:  Beyond fear of change, it seems cultures around the world have developed fears of science akin to attitudes of the European Dark Ages when the knowledge and inquiries peoples in other parts of the world were suppressed, mindlessly fought and punished.

There are some good reasons for this–bad experiences from pesticides, morning sickness medications, etc. But we also overlook the benefits from science and technology that we take for granted, even with their dangers (planes, cars, diet sodas).

How anyone can prefer tar/oil sands to verdant fields or batteries using cobalt and lithium from mines with no environmental protections or labor laws to engines running on fuels from family farms and forests that recycle carbon?

There would be no Valley of Death if humans implemented policies to achieve real pollution control like the CleanAirAct and CleanWaterAct did. Or if a person’s value didn’t relate to income or wealth kept but that invested for the community or greater good.