04/27/07 Walden Conversation (Pt.2)

Walden Conversation. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Yesterday we chatted with Oregon Congressman Greg Walden who recently traveled around the state talking with people about renewable fuels and heard a lot of great ideas. But all the news wasn't a rosy picture. Walden says that while biofuels can have a major benefit to the area and the nation, there is a downside. WALDEN: The other thing you find is there are unintended consequences. I was down in Klamath Falls and a farmer said to me  a rancher  he said I'll tell what ethanol meant to me, it was a hundred thousand dollars higher cost to finish off my herd of cattle because of the increased cost of corn. And so now we are seeing this impact on food stuffs whether it's corn or even wheat is up which is great if you are the grower, it's bad of you are the consumer and so as we look at alternative energy and we look at agricultures roll there's clearly a significant roll to be played. We need to understand that there can be unintended and negative consequences too. I've talked about this in the past but it bears being brought up again, as we search for the answer to fossil fuels and our independence on foreign and often hostile oil there are more ideas out there than Carter has pills. Are we playing a hit and miss game? Walden doesn't think so. WALDEN: Well I think that's okay right now to shotgun it a bit because there are new technologies that are being tinkered with. I think were at the sort of start up age if you will of alternative fuel sources that can add to our portfolio and make America more energy independent and that's a good thing. But some of these plants, some of the technologies are still under development and so there's a lot of experimentation going on right now all across the country for everything I mean whether it's expanding the efficiency of wind energy  there's new technology I heard about recently on geothermal that can produce electricity at 165 degree water temperature which is a lot cooler than they've ever done before. Anything we can do that makes sense economically and environmentally to help make America energy independent is a good thing. Walden says that legislation has helped kick start the idea machine. WALDEN: So there are a lot of different concepts being kicked around. The energy policy act we passed here in 2005 that I was on the committee that wrote and supported set in motion a lot of this both through the renewable energy portfolio standard for alternative fuel sources that we put in the law and the tax credits to the blenders that help incent the use of these fuels. I want America to be energy independent. It'd be great if we could grow our way out of it. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.