Ethanol fix needed
This editorial by the Journal Editorial Board appeared in this morning’s Rapid City (SD) Journal [here]. They too take exception to the new energy bill’s programmatic exclusion of bio-energy from wood wastes from National Forests [here]:
The new energy bill that President Bush signed into law at the end of December already needs a fix. H.R. 6 has lots of good news for the ethanol industry in South Dakota, with its policies that promote the increased use of that biofuel in our nation’s gasoline supply. But it also contains at least one policy provision that is disappointing to people who hope to increase the production of cellulosic ethanol.
Late in the legislation-making process, the federal energy bill was changed to discourage the use of wood chips, tree limbs, slash piles and other wood wastes from national forests — including the Black Hills National Forest — by bio-refineries that would use those feedstocks to make ethanol. The energy bill now excludes ethanol derived from materials collected on national forests from being counted toward our new ethanol-usage mandate and the financial incentives that go along with that.
Since one of the stated goals of our new national energy policy is to be producing 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2022 — and since 21 billion of those gallons is supposed to come from biomass materials other than corn — that seems like bad public policy to us.
Often, the making of laws, like the making of sausage, is something best done out of public view. Still, we’d love to have the Democratic leadership explain how that particular provision got included so late in the game.
It deprives the forestry products industry in the Black Hills of an important secondary market for its wood wastes. Without a designation as “renewable biomass,” BHNF wood waste offers no incentive for ethanol blenders and refiners to purchase it as a source of fuel.
We think Congress needs to fix that flaw in the energy bill, and so does Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.
Her legislative director is weighing the congressional options to get that done after Congress reconvenes on Jan. 22, but it likely won’t happen without the passage of a new law.
The 2007 Farm Bill, which has yet to emerge from conference committee or be signed into law, does contain better news for cellulosic ethanol supporters in western South Dakota. Both the House and Senate versions contain Sen. John Thune’s Biofuels Innovation Program, which does provide incentives for the collection of BHNF wood wastes.
Whether via the Farm Bill, stand-alone legislation, or as an amendment to another bill, we urge Congress to fix this problem. Without a remedy in law, the Black Hills will be deprived of an important economic opportunity.
by bear bait
Here in California, where we have lots of fuels and lots of problems with it, the market for this pulp wood is almost non-existent. Fuel costs have made it so the chips just don’t “pay their way” out of the woods.
My solution is to create regional sites out in the woods that significantly reduce transportation costs. These sites should be able to accomodate a somewhat portable machine that converts wood into power. These sites will have new power lines to each of the dozens of sites needed in the Golden State. They will also be used in the future for the maintenance of forest fuels. It gives us a market to utilize that submerchanable material that currently gets burned, anyway.
Why not capture and sell that value instead of growing “firewood” with which to heat our atmosphere?
Pulp is used for paper, and Canada controls that franchise. Chipboard is another use of woody debris, but domestic chip markets are hampered by competition from vast quantities of chips in Canadian boreal forests.
Burning wood waste to make electricity is also not economically viable. That’s why the Energy Bill offers incentives and subsidies: the market cannot do it on it’s own.
The best plan is to thin forests down to historic, sustainable, firesafe stocking levels, sell the merchantable stuff removed (sawlogs), and burn the trash in piles in the woods. That plan actually MAKES money. Shows a profit. Returns funds to the landowner and the operators.
Wood waste is not a viable solution to our Energy Crisis. Treating forests could ameliorate our Forest Destruction Crisis, however.
The goofy language in the Energy Bill obstructs good forest stewardship. It will lead to more megafires. That’s the problem with the Bill, in my opinion. If the Idiots would kindly step aside, and allow foresters to care for forests, then we might solve one Major Problem.
Will forest stewardship solve Global Warming and the Energy Crisis? Probably not. But it will save our forests.
Once again the knee jerk guy, Antagonism of the Left, wants no taking wood from forests. He raises billions by slopping from the public trough and then shakes his head in a “no” vote to using wood waste to make biofuel or domestic, renewable energy. Instead we get tax supported biofuels from subsidized agriculture, higher food prices, and outboard motors that won’t run. Lucky us. Why do we elect these clowns? Why?
It would not be so insane if not for the “NO” being automatic, every time, from the big tent of Democrat politics. You do have to wonder if anyone out there does think anymore. And I will bet that instead of more thinking we are going to get more knee jerks, shorter party line policy statements, and a g’itar plunkin’ Arkie in the White House… while we have yet to recover from that last one.
We got interim insanity in Clinton’s place, and probably because Bill did not take care of foreign policy business, Bush was left with the paper bag full of burning horsepucky on the White House front porch. Trick or Treat.
Time to go flip my lips and make motor boat sounds. Tap my toes to the Huckabee Two Step while Hillary does the Tango with Obama, a red Lawfirm Rose in her teeth… slip, slide, stop, shuffle, slip, slide… a great big joke is what all this has become, a joke on us. They are all dancing to Freddie Weyerhauser’s Big Pulp Band, with IP on the keyboard, GP on drums, Potlatch on the pipes, you know the drill. They are playing their favorite tune, “Don’t let no public wood in the market, ever and ever.” In summer they play Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire” a lot.
Time to fill the bath tub… the lights are flickering, and the wind is blowing.