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May 18, 2005
A letter from Climate Solutions...
From KC Golden over at Climate Solutions...
Clean Slate
May 2005
Beyond Crisco - Growing our energy future
What's important about vegetable oil?
If you're thinking French Fries, you're thinking too small. Think rural economic development. Think environmental protection. Think national security.
While vegetable oil has been putting the flip in your flapjacks all these years, it's been harboring higher ambitions. Now it's emerging as an affordable alternative to war, economic decay, and environmental disruption - the byproducts of fossil fuel dependence.
(If we require disclosure of side-effects in advertising for Viagra, shouldn't we do the same for oil companies? "This product may cause you to experience chronic trade deficits, difficulty breathing the air, and persistent threats to national security.")
Republican Senator Richard Lugar and former CIA director James Woolsey think veggie oil and other plant-based fuels are the way to cook a brighter future: "If the hundreds of billions of dollars that now flow into a few coffers in a few nations were to flow instead to the millions of people who till the world's fields, most countries would see substantial national security, economic, and environmental benefits."
The Spokane County Conservation District sees biodiesel - made from oil crops like mustard and canola -- as a big driver for Eastern Washington's farm economy:
"With these industries will come jobs and economic growth to the region, energy security through the use of domestically produced fuel, and cleaner air due to reduced emissions from diesel vehicles. In addition, the development of the biodiesel oil seed industry and on-farm energy production can ultimately mean the difference between having a viable farm operation or having to sell the family farm."
Biodiesel is a hot commodity in Seattle -- up there with coffee and connectivity. People can't get enough of the stuff. They're burning it in ferries and construction equipment, school buses and garbage trucks, Volkswagens and Mercedes. A King County Metro bus is shrink-wrapped to look like a giant Canola bottle; the side says: "This bus runs on veggie oil. Homegrown. Fights global warming." A new refinery just opened in South Seattle and another is planned. Farmers in Eastern Washington are eyeing the energy-hungry city as a market for a potentially lucrative new cash crop.
Further east, in Idaho farm country, a Canadian company proposes to turn straw into gold with the nation's first large bioethanol plant. Using waste wheat straw as a feedstock, the facility will make ethanol that can be burned in conventional gasoline engines. Most ethanol today is made from corn, which requires a lot of energy to produce. Today's starch-based ethanol provides some energy benefits and emission reductions, but when we start harvesting energy from crop wastes, we'll really be cooking clean.
While offering a promising remedy for our petroleum addiction, biofuels can also help cure what ails us politically. Check out this story about Oregon's political odd couple -- Representative Jeff Kropf, R-Sublimity [yes, Sublimity!] and Rep. Jackie Dingfelder, D-Portland - and their package of biofuels legislation:
"SALEM - He's a radio talk-show host and one of the most conservative members of the Oregon House. She's an environmental consultant from Portland and one of the most liberal members. Yet they've joined forces on a package of bills promoting cleaner-burning ethanol and biodiesel made from canola and mustard seeds.
He's not thrilled about the mandates or fee increases included in the biofuels package. She's not happy about extending pollution-control tax credits to farmers. Yet Kropf sees a potential economic boon, and Dingfelder wants the environmental benefits….
Katie Fast, lobbyist for the Oregon Farm Bureau, said the potential here goes beyond passing a package of legislation: 'It could help heal the urban-rural divide.'"
This week, Senator Maria Cantwell helped celebrate the opening of a new biodiesel fuel pump at Laurelhurst Oil in Seattle. She's swimming against the fossil-fueled tide in Washington D.C. by offering amendments to the energy bill designed to accelerate domestic biofuel production.
When you drive up to the pump at Laurelhurst Oil, near University Village, you can choose your energy future: regular petroleum-based diesel or biodiesel. Windfall profits for big oil, or a new cash crop for struggling rural economies. Disrupt the climate by releasing carbon from the earth's crust into the atmosphere, or protect the climate by recycling carbon from plants.
Mine and drill, or sew and reap.
Instead of digging ever deeper into foreign deserts and wildlife refuges and geopolitical quagmires for fuel, we can start picking it from our fields.
Posted by Martin at May 18, 2005 09:03 AM
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