Washington – Colorado wheat, trees culled from state forests and tallgrass grown on the Eastern Plains could help fuel the nation if the effort to rewrite the nation’s energy policy survives the U.S. Senate and becomes law.
Legislation headed for a vote later this week proposes energy law changes that would have important implications for Colorado.
Among the most significant is a push toward biofuels – crops that can be converted into ethanol used as a supplement to gasoline.
“The opportunity to grow our way to energy independence, I think, is an unparalleled opportunity for farmers and ranchers, said Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo. “It’s the best opportunity that has come down the way of rural America in the last century.”
The bill is still under development. Several amendments are planned for this week that could cause major changes.
Salazar favors nearly all provisions in the bill. Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., opposes mandates in the bill, arguing that tax incentives and other mechanisms should be used to let the market drive change.
“He doesn’t want to adversely impact the market with a one- size-fits-all solution,” said Allard spokesman Steve Wymer.
The portion of the bill dealing with ethanol and other biofuels mandates a sharp increase in how much the U.S. must produce, from 7.5 billion gallons that will be manufactured in 2008 to 36 billion gallons by 2022.
And the bill requires a switch away from corn, which has been the main source of ethanol but has been criticized. Using corn for ethanol is increasingly controversial, with cattle ranchers and food manufacturers saying it has pushed up the cost of corn significantly. Environmental groups also say it takes too much energy to convert corn into fuel.
Fuels made from plant material “can be a large and important tool for ending our dependence on oil and stopping global warming,” the Natural Resources Defense Council said in a statement.
The legislation requires that by 2022, of that 35 billion gallons of ethanol produced, 21 billion must come from “cellulosic ethanol,” feedstocks other than corn. The bill is likely to include tax incentives for producers of bio fuels.
Several companies, including Broomfield-based Range Fuels Inc., are building plants to process crops into fuel.
The National Energy Renewable Laboratory also is working on the effort, using a $20 million federal grant for a lab studying the conversion of different products into biomass, said Bob Noun, executive director for external affairs.
First-generation biofuel refineries could be running by 2012, Noun said.
A push toward biofuels would give farmers a crop that requires less water, said Bob Mailander, director of the cooperative development center at the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union. That crop would be harvested annually and sold to ethanol plants.
“It provides another revenue source stream for those farmers that’s probably more stable than the (crop) commodities market,” Mailander said.
The switch to other crops isn’t likely to avoid all controversy. With limited acreage, Mailander said, many farmers will have to decide whether to grow food or crops for ethanol.
In Colorado, biofuel is also likely to be developed from brome grass, wood chips made from trees on federal land, and nonfood portions of corn.
And biofuel plants use energy. In fact, the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, a trade group for oil and natural-gas producers, said the push for biofuels would help natural-gas producers because that fuel is used to make biofuels.
