12/14/06 Biofuels at the Forefront

Biofuels at the forefront. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Everyone these days is talking about biofuels. Can it really be the solution to the energy crisis? Can farmers "grow" our fuel for the future? Having a renewable fuel source in our own back yards is becoming a reality. But before you can run, you have to walk and that is what the Western States Biofuels Association is doing. The first annual Biofuels Industry Summit featured guest speakers from a broad cross section of the industry. Highlights included a presentation by Washington State Department of Agriculture Director Valoria Loveland and keynote speeches from Senators Mark Schoesler and Janea Holmquist. Beth Calabotta of Monsanto discussed how education would play an important role in the growing biodiesel industry. CALABOTTA: If you haven't grown a crop and your father hasn't grown a crop and your grandfather hasn't grown a crop and your neighbor hasn't, how are you going to learn how to grow this crop particularly when it's a high input? And local champions in crop information is imperative if you want to begin a seed crop. There are many organizations devoting a lot of time and energy to bringing biofuels to the forefront including the ambitious 25x25. Read Smith of 25x25 talks about the numbers. SMITH: Let's just look at the numbers through 2004, our country consumed about 100 quads of energy and a quad is a quadrillion BTU's. It's a measurement of energy consumed. We're talking about heat power and transportation so it's a large number. So in 2004 about 100 quads. About 5 quads of that in 2004, if you count old hydro, was delivered through renewables. About half of that is hydros, about half of that is biomass. I f you go out to 2025 they are looking in the neighborhood of 136 quads of energy consumption by our country at that time and if you take 25 percent of that number you can see we need to develop a considerable amount of renewable energy. This is not going to be easy. Business as usual will not get us to 25% by the year 2025. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.