Karen Maguire, Sophia J. Tanner, Justin B. Winikoff, and Ryan Williams USDA, Economic Research Service, May 2024 The following findings were reported in this interesting report. This study examines land cover surrounding rural solar and wind installation sites from 2009–20. … Continue reading →
My career has been defined as y = f(x). Technology, and in this case, Outputs, y, are (created from,=,) a function of, f(), inputs, x. In other words, how inputs are combined determines the technology. Corn can be grown with … Continue reading →
In the most recent post, the case was made that in their role as producers, farms transform inputs into outputs more than establish and maintain markets in the final goods and services, retail sector. The 2022 Census of Agriculture also … Continue reading →
The previous post, The Price of Food Dominates Alternative Use Markets, sparked a desire to map out the farm-level activities into feed, fuel, and food. This was an innocent effort and was not successful. The transformations that occur on a … Continue reading →
This chart was created in 2011 to illustrate the US. price of fuel relative to the US. price of food. The debate back in those days was whether to produce food or fuel (food vs. fuel). It was the politics … Continue reading →
Manure doesn’t have to be a liability or associated with a 4-letter expletive. Cultural shifts begin with the seminal definition of the issue in question. If the initial definition is negative, options are bound by the limits of the definition. … Continue reading →
Life shapes us. It has certainly shaped Mark Jenner’s career path. I was raised to make the world a better place, and what an odyssey of bridge-building and provocation it has been! This week, I turned in my keys at … Continue reading →
In 2008, a major publisher ran a story about where all the biomass feedstocks were. It was a good story that brought attention to biomass as a fuel source. But they used the National Renewable Energy Labs (NREL) ‘Total Tonnes’ … Continue reading →
Over the course of my career maps and mapping software have continued to evolve. Maps are compelling and visually informative. As this graphic interface has evolved, there are rules about what is proper and what is not. Like so many … Continue reading →
Most economic demand today manifests itself in report charts and news as a change over time. But traditional economic supply and demand curves do not have time in them (price x quantity). Demand drives any economy, but it doesn’t look … Continue reading →
