03/05/07 Idaho energy, Van Gerpen

When the University of Idaho's Jon van Gerpen thinks about renewable liquid fuels, three come to mind. VAN GERPEN "Ethanol. We hear probably the most about ethanol these days. Our other option would be biodiesel which is where my focus has been. In that case we're really looking at needing to grown an oil seed crop of some type and of course then there's the option of biogas." Idaho doesn't have a huge oil seed crop base and that's why the state doesn't produce enough biodiesel to measure. What is now produced by Blue Sky Biodiesel at New Plymouth comes from soybean oil imported from the Midwest. Van Gerpen says crops like canola can grown in Idaho to supply biodiesel but he says its hard to get farmers to grown canola when wheat it five dollars a bushel. Canola cannot be grown in the Treasure Valley to protect other crops. VAN GERPEN "Cross fertilization of some of the seed crops that are grown in that area. Some of the other areas have limitations on how close you can grow canola with some of the industrial varieties of rapeseed." Last year 225 million gallons of biodiesel were produced, a ten fold increase from 2004 with more production plants coming on line each month. Today's Idaho Ag News Bill Scott