Several times in recent months Bill Levy has sat in meetings listening to technology developers try to pry funds from venture capitalists for alternative energy plants.
In most cases, the developers have grandiose plans for turning biomass into energy.
But few, he said, realize what is involved.
"The whole biomass energy industry is full of people who are talking about doing something, but who don't have a lot of experience in handling some of these issues," Levy said. "I feel like we're in a good position, with our experience."
For the past 12 years, Levy has operated a crop-residue-baling business. With an annual production of 150,000 tons, he is uniquely poised to provide the developers with one thing they can't live without: biomass.
"We do it now to dairies and feedlots and exporters," he said. "But it could be a biorefinery."
Levy's company, Pacific Ag Solutions, which he co-owns with Luke Dynes, bales dedicated feed crops and the residue from grass seed, wheat, beans and peas.
The keys to his business, he said, are providing farmers an unorthodox revenue stream and staying busy.
"Our model is to go from the first cutting of alfalfa into pea vines, then roll into the first cutting of timothy (hay), then roll into bluegrass, then ryegrass, then bean vines, then wheat straw, and then corn stover."
"In 2007-08 we actually baled 11 months of the year, because we baled corn stover all winter long," he said.
The business is unique in that it provides farmers with revenue from crop residue they otherwise would plow under.
"I've had farmers say, 'We don't know why you pay us, because if you didn't pay us, we'd have to pay you to come do this,'" he said.
"We coined what we do as the hidden harvest," he said.
Levy delivers his product to dairies, including large operations, such as Threemile Canyon Farms in Boardman, Ore., and to exporters for shipment to Asia, where it is used as feed for dairy and beef cattle.
Expansion into bio-energy, he said, will allow him to scale up the number of farms and acres he serves.
Levy, 33, graduated from Oregon State University in 1999 with a business already in hand. He and a friend from the agricultural college, Jeremy Kennel, had started baling grass seed straw in Hermiston and the Willamette Valley in 1998.
"We had 8,000 tons that first year," he said.
Levy bought out Kennel five years ago and moved his operation out of the Willamette Valley, settling in Hermiston.
Pacific Ag Solutions today runs one of the largest haying fleets in the U.S. Last year, the business contracted with 50 growers and harvested 70,000 acres of crop residue and dedicated feed stock.
Levy said customers tend to stay with him: Several have been with him all 12 years he's been in business. One reason for the longevity, he believes, is he stayed focused.
"We've never vertically integrated into owning a feedlot or dairy or exporting our own product," he said. "We've always left that to others.
"I think it's been a good move because I think it has kept our focus on what we are good at," he said.
Levy characterizes his expansion into the bio-energy industry as a third leg of his business model.
"We've had two markets," he said, "which is domestic and export. And now there is a third market showing up, which is energy."
As part of the expansion, Levy operates a pellet plant that converts residue to pellets. He also brought on a partner to help him through the complexities of the bio-energy industry.
In the proposals the partners have heard in recent months, it is evident that most developers are unaware of the amount of crop residue needed to power a biomass plant, he said.
It would take 2 million dry tons of biomass to fire a 500-megawatt coal plant such as Portland General Electric's Boardman plant, Levy said, or more than two-thirds the volume of the West Coast's annual hay and straw exports.
"It took 30 years for the West Coast to develop an industry that is now crowding 3 million tons," said Levy's partner, Steve Van Mouwerik, a former executive of Anderson Hay and Grain in Ellensburg, Wash. "So the scale of ramp up here (to meet biomass demand) is daunting."
Levy and Van Mouwerik are hoping in the coming weeks to ink a long-term contract to supply a biorefinery with biomass.
"I think there is a huge opportunity here," Levy said.
"Bio-energy is going to be the driver to put together a national footprint for a crop residue and forage aggregate company," he said. "And I have a passion for wanting to build out that vision."
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