NDSU students, faculty and staff are invited to an agribusiness and applied economics seminar titled, "Comprehensive Enterprise Risk Management," presented by Blue Flint Ethanol commodity risk manager David Spickler on Friday, Sept. 2, at 10 a.m. in Richard H. Barry Hall room 600.

Spickler developed a proprietary trading program that has garnered national attention and recently was presented at the national Fuel Ethanol Workshop in Indianapolis.  

Blue Flint Ethanol is a joint venture between Great River Energy and Headwaters Inc. In what could become a model for coal and nuclear-fueled power plants or other industrial facilities producing large amounts of steam, Headwaters Inc. and Great River Energy opened the first co-located, directly integrated ethanol plant in the world. Production at the facility began in February 2007.

The Blue Flint Ethanol Plant is located adjacent to Coal Creek Station, a Great River Energy coal-fueled power plant near Underwood, N.D. With no boiler in Blue Flint's 20-acre plant, the new ethanol production facility uses what is primarily waste heat from steam generated at Coal Creek Station to process 18 million bushels of corn into 50 million gallons of ethanol per year. 

Spickler earned his bachelor's degree in animal range sciences from NDSU in 2004.