Farmer pioneers green energy practices in Ohio

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BROOKVILLE — When he was laid up in the hospital recovering from knee surgery, farmer Ralph Dull picked up a thick notebook dropped off by a friend that detailed how wind generators are being used to produce electricity.

“I had plenty of time to read it,” Dull recalled. “And I said, ’That’s something we could do.”’

The 79-year-old Dull has since become an Ohio pioneer in green farming and renewable energy, jumping into it with both feet in hopes of increasing energy efficiency, cutting costs and protecting the environment. Dull’s practices have drawn visitors that include Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown and Ohio Agriculture Director Robert Boggs.

There are six wind generators on his 2,800-acre farm in western Ohio. In one building sits a machine that produces hydrogen, a clean fuel made from electricity and water that Dull hopes will soon replace the gasoline in his cars and forklifts and supplant the propane to heat his pig barn.

Dull’s office is geothermal heated and cooled, he dries his seed corn by burning reject corn instead of propane, and he grinds corn cobs to sell as horse bedding and mulch.

Strickland came away impressed by the farm and what it could mean for agriculture’s role in environmental protection.

“He is demonstrating through his farming practices that you can have a profitable farming operation while caring for the Earth,” Strickland said.

The governor and GOP legislative leaders want the state to rely more on alternative energy and are pushing a stimulus package that would earmark $150 million for advanced energy sources such as solar, wind and clean coal.

Experts say that while Dull is still the exception, more farmers are expressing interest in green farming and in using renewable energy sources. Beyond environmental concerns, cost-conscious farmers are seeing economic benefits as fuel and fuel-based fertilizer prices soar.

Challenges include the uncertainty of whether the investment in wind generators would pay for itself, whether there would be a market for hydrogen and interest among neighboring farmers in sharing the expense and labor, and whether there would be an adequate supply of reject corn to fuel the dryers.

Steve Fugate, a renewable energy expert in Iowa City, Iowa, said farmers must adopt some of these new technologies to survive.

“If they don’t, they’re done,” he said. “This run-up in fuel prices has really put the branding iron to their backsides.”

The national average price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline hit a record $3.62 a gallon last week, according to a survey of stations by AAAand the Oil Price Information Service. Diesel prices were $4.24 a gallon.

And U.S. prices for natural gas, a major component in the production of the nitrogen fertilizer anhydrous ammonia, have nearly doubled since late August.

“Five or six years ago, Ralph would have been considered a voice crying out in the wilderness,” said Dale Arnold, director of energy services for the Ohio Farm Bureau. “Now, other farmers are lining up behind him.”

Arnold said more operators of small and medium-sized farms of about 600 acres or smaller — not just the larger farms — are crunching numbers and trying to decide whether it makes financial sense for them to invest in wind, solar or other renewable power.

“This is not what you would call an impulse buy,” Arnold said. “You’re talking about spending the same amount of money as you would on a new combine or major piece of equipment on their farm.”

Dull spent $210,000 on his 120- foot-high windmills, 25 percent of which was bankrolled by a state grant. The windmills account for about 15 percent of the $40,000 worth of electricity required to run the farm each year.

Dull dropped about $100,000 on his corn-drying furnace. At current propane prices, it has saved him about $150,000.

Fugate, in Iowa City, is owner of Green World Biofuels and founder of the Yoderville Biodiesel Collective, which turns waste oil into biodiesel fuel for about $1 a gallon. He said he is getting a half dozen calls a week from people who want to join the collective and that the increased interest in biodiesel has enabled him to start a half dozen other collectives in the area.

Farmers account for 20 percent of business done by the Athens, Ohio-based Dovetail Solar and Wind. Sales and inquiries from farmers are up 50 percent since 2005.

And sales doubled last year for the Athens-based Third Sun Solar and Wind Power, which sells and installs wind generators and solar equipment for commercial and residential users.

“It’s moving from the early adopters and true believers; now it’s mainstream,” said company president Geoff Greenfield.

Dull preaches the green-farming gospel at the Future Energy and Conservation Center, a small green-and-white building on his farm that he opened in 2006. Inside are tables filled with pamphlets and fact sheets on solar energy, biomass, hydrogen and other renewable-energy ideas.

Dull said he has noticed an uptick in interest from farmers and others in the past year.

“It’s hitting them in the pocketbook more,” he said.

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