Washblog

Alternative Fuels Conversation Tonight on Washblog

Tonight, 7PM, on Washblog's front page for a conversation on Biofuels in the Northwest.  Listen in - or join in.

Email correspondence, 7/22/06, from Joseph J. James, CEO of The Corporation for Economic Opportunity, S. Carolina, regarding tonight's biofuels conversation on Washblog:
I was glad to read your message about the need for cellulosic complements to corn, as a bio-fuel feedstock.  Our organization is actively involved in biomass issues in South Carolina and the Southeast.  We are also assisting our National Forest and our forestry industry find new ways to use the woody biomass that results from fire hazard trimmings or the waste from timber harvesting and processing.

We are also active members of the Southern Alliance for the Utilization of Biomass Resources (SAUBR), a 14-state organization promoting biomass initiatives in the Southeast.  See www.saubr.ua.edu.  Recognizing the need for adequate political clout to create a more balanced federal policy concerning bio-fuels feedstocks, the Northwest and the Southeast, two places where heavy corn production is unlikely, need to find a way to work together.  Please share that thought with your fellow bloggers and let's find some ways to increase our ability to work together.
Joseph J. James, President & CEO, The Corporation for Economic Opportunity, (South Carolina) and SAUBR board member.

It's a new fact of our lives.  We're going to be using more biofuels here in Washington -- more ethanol, more bio-diesel.  Perhaps 20% of our fuel will come from these sources in the next decade.  Beyond that, depending on what happens with the fossil fuel supply, with our urban-rural political relationships, with transportation and energy technologies, with the ways we arrange our cities and our work lives and do our farming - well, I'll go out on a limb here and predict a transition to a very different world.   And I'll take a moment of silence in honor of our opportunity here in Washington State - and across the country -- to recognize this historical moment for what it is and take charge of our destiny

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What Mr. James refers to in the quote above is our need to develop cellulosic feedstocks for ethanol production -- in both his region of the country and in ours.  His statement captures very well, I think, the political importance of this question - how can we ensure that we turn to sustainable sources and methods for our alternative fuels  -  how are we going to get the political clout to do this right?

"Feedstocks" means the stuff we get our fuel from. "cellulosic" means, basically, woody stuff.   Forest trimmings, wheat waste, etc.  Here's an amazing resource, the Washington State Biomass Inventory of the Pacific Regional Biomass Energy Partnership, that shows with great specificity, what kinds of biomass--and how  much - we have in Washington.  Beautiful!

Many people think of corn when ethanol is mentioned.  I always have.  But we don't grow corn so well here in Washington (or as we see, where Mr. James lives, either).   And, although fuel from corn does provide more energy output than it takes to produce (contrary to public misconception based on a single flawed study co-authored by a petroleum industry advocate), it is a relatively resource-and-energy-expensive way to produce fuel.  

Here and now in Washington, biodiesel production is happening at a faster pace than ethanol production.  But, although both types of fuels will grow in importance,  we're likely to see a reversal of sorts -- ethanol is likely to become a bigger industry than biodiesel as we develop local sources to create it.  Feedstock questions --questions of what kind of stuff we make the fuels from -- are critical for both ethanol and biodiesel.   Peter Moulton, who plans to join tonight's conversation, directs  Harvesting Clean Energy.  Here's a quote from that page:

Today's starch-based ethanol industry (N.M.: corn, etc.) is a transition phase to a much larger industry based on cellulose, the stuff of which most of the plant world is made. The future industry will be fed by cellulosic materials including agricultural, forest and mill residue, urban wood and yard waste and fast-growing energy crops

There are many questions we must answer to get this right.   The investments and policy decisions that are creating our new energy industries -- both for electrical power and fuel -- are being made very fast.   What we do now will determine our state's - and our country's - direction for many years to come.   Something that strikes me very strongly is the connection between sustainable food farming and sustainable energy farming.  The destinies of these two industries are linked.    Consider this description from WSU's Triple Bio program.  (The emphasis is mine):

Washington's agricultural and natural resource industries face increasing pressure from rising energy and input prices, increasing global competition, global climate change, heightened demand for environmental responsibility, and declining rural income relative to urban populations. In this difficult context, our farmers are being called upon to produce energy in addition to food and fiber, while also providing environmental services such as clean air and water and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Triple BIO is a comprehensive program to address all of these competing interests without compromising the primary goal of improved agricultural sustainability in Washington State. Triple BIOTM is the integration of new and existing efforts at WSU ... targeted at improving the resiliency and sustainability of Washington's farms and rural communities by providing targeted research, education, extension/technology transfer, and technology demonstration in the areas of biologically intensive agriculture and organic farming, bioenergy, and bioproducts.

At the core, what I am arguing here is that food and energy - the gifts from the sun that run our bodies and machines - also run our economy and our lives.  Everything we care about is connected to how we produce and distribute this stored energy.   Environmental health, economic justice and security, national security, community livability, wilderness protection, peace.

This is an exciting story, politically.  The alternative fuels industry itself is becoming increasingly powerful - a trend that will continue - and that will express itself in ways we can predict --- and in ways that will surprise us.   The political clout of the agricultural sector will also be shifting.  We might hope that it shifts so that the economy, people and communities of rural Washington are no longer left behind as they are now, many of them victims of a global marketplace that siphons off local economic and environmental wealth.   The work - and the battles - that will define our new food and energy landscape will be a Big Story, one of the most dramatic of our time.  We're inside a new gold rush..

A person from a peace listserv where I advertised tonight's conversation summed up his understanding of what we're dealinig with in this way:  "saving the earth will be the next revolution."  He's right!  This is what is at stake.

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Tonight's conversation, based on an essay by Greg Rock of Green Car Company is in a series sponsored by the Back to the Roots program of Institute for Washington's Future.  A central goal of this program is to help focus civic attention on the question: how do we strengthen our commons?  Building more democratic food and energy industries -- which allow more opportunities and profits for local families and communities-- is an important element of this answer. Please do visit that page, sign up for our announcement list, reserve tickets to an upcoming appearance by Jim Hightower.

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Biofuels have an important role to play in our energy future-- whether we are talking about biodiesel or cellulosic ethanol.

I have a few points to make, however.

First, there is a limit to the amount of fuel we can grow while still maintaining food crops, and a modicum of biodiversity in the soils and the landscape. This means that we need to step up our conservation efforts: better fuel economy in our cars and conservation in our homes and businesses.

Second, while biofuels do reduce the greenhouse gas emissions, current technologies only reduce them by 20 (ethanol from corn) to 80 percent (the best biodiesel). This is an improvement, but it does us no good to exagerate it. Such exagerations lead opponents to dismiss all the good information with the bad.

The important thing to realize is that biofuels are a good step forward, but only the first in a long series of policy and personal decisions that need ot be made if we are to survive the end of oil without economic and social collapse.

We have been doing research on energy independence for over five years, and it is clear that it is possible-- and on a pretty short timeline, but it takes political will to do so.

Rita Schenck
Executive Director<