Spokesman Review
March 5, 2006 Sunday _Idaho Edition
Spokane, WA: A; Pg. 1
Fields of gain
With the state proposal to set a minimum biodiesel standard, politicians,
researchers and farmers see an idealistic and lucrative future
James Hagengruber
Staff writer
MOSCOW, Idaho
With some seed, sun and soil, the Inland Northwest is looking to help grow the nation
away from its messy addiction to petroleum.
Wheat farmers are being wooed into growing thousands of acres of a yellow flowering
plant with seeds capable of powering cars and heating homes. Plans also are well under
way for at least two refineries in the region, which could be churning out millions of
gallons of home-grown fuel by the end of the year.
Seemingly overnight, biodiesel has vaulted from the realm of university labs and
Volkswagen bus-driving idealists to a potential tonic for curing the region's ailing farm
economy, while at the same time sealing the widening cracks in the energy foundation of
the national economy.
"There's a gold rush mentality," said Jon Van Gerpen, a noted biodiesel expert recently
recruited from Iowa State University to direct the University of Idaho's national
Biodiesel Education Program.
Unlike a gold rush, however, the biofuel industry is expected to stay in business as long
as society needs energy, Van Gerpen said. Investors are racing to get a piece of the
action, but few seem to have the know-how to create fuel from seeds. This has
heightened demand for students from Idaho's program, Van Gerpen said. One
undergraduate recently snagged an internship at a California biodiesel refinery. But
instead of returning to Idaho, he was lured into staying with the company after being
offered a plant manager job with a $70,000 annual salary.
Van Gerpen traces the frenzy to a combination of factors: ever-increasing petroleum
prices, improved biodiesel technology, growing unrest in petroleum-producing lands and
new laws that provide incentives for using the plant-based fuel.
Last year, Minnesota instituted a requirement that biodiesel make up 2 percent of all
diesel sold in the state. That amounted to only about 15 million gallons, but the
guaranteed market prompted a flurry of investment and the state now produces 65
million gallons a year, Van Gerpen said. Hundreds of jobs were created, and soybean
farmers were handed a new, local market for their harvest.
"It didn't cost the state a thing to create this new industry," Van Gerpen said. "That
mandate was just the trigger."
Washington stands poised to become the second state in the nation to institute a
biodiesel requirement. This week, legislators are expected to vote on a similar 2 percent
proposal, which would require as much as 30 million gallons of biodiesel to be sold per
year beginning in 2008, based on the state's current consumption of nearly 1.5 billion
gallons of petroleum diesel annually.
OFF THE BACK BURNER
The idea of extracting energy from vegetable oil has been around since Rudolph Diesel
began tinkering with a new style of engine well over a century ago. But cheap petroleum
from the Middle East and a long-established refining industry has long kept biofuels on
the back burner, said Charles Peterson, a University of Idaho professor and a pioneering
researcher in the field.
Peterson, who was raised on a farm in southern Idaho, explained the basic idea on how
plants can harness energy: "It's just a big solar collector. We're using land to grow plants
to collect energy from the sun, compact it and use it to power engines."
The process would require lots of land. If Washington were to grow enough canola to
supply 30 million gallons of biodiesel, nearly a half-million acres would be needed,
according to some estimates. That would be nearly half the size of Spokane County. For
Idaho to grow 2 percent of its diesel, about 100,000 acres of good cropland would be
needed, Peterson said. This is land that won't be devoted to growing food.
Peterson became interested in the idea in the late 1970s, just as the country was in the
midst of energy and farm crises. He started with an experiment by going to the grocery
store, buying bottles of sunflower oil and pouring them into an old Ford tractor. The
machine sputtered to life. Although the motor quickly gummed up - he didn't add any
alcohol to thin the mix - three decades of ensuing research have helped Peterson and
the university come up with wiser ways of using plants for fuel.
Nowadays, about one gallon of alcohol is added to every nine gallons of raw oil
extracted from seeds. Much of the 350 million gallons of biodiesel produced each year in
the United States comes from soybean oil, according to the National Biodiesel Board.
But Peterson and his colleagues are focusing on extracting oil from canola or mustard
seeds. These plants offer more oil and result in a fuel that produces less pollution than
soybean oil, according to research at the University of Idaho.
It takes energy to grow the plants and turn the oil into fuel. The exact balance of energy
has been the focus of a heated debate, with a prominent scientist from Cornell University
recently claiming that the process results in a 27 percent net loss of energy, when things
like fertilizer and transporting the crop are factored into the equation. Research
conducted at the University of Idaho, however, refutes these findings and claims that 2.8
units of biodiesel energy are created by every one unit of energy devoted to the process.
The Idaho research also considered the crushed seed meal left over after the oil is
extracted. This meal is a valuable, protein-rich food for livestock and poultry, and this
beneficial byproduct should be considered, researchers say.
Biodiesel should not be seen as the answer to the country's energy crunch, Peterson
said in the university's biodiesel lab. The room had the subtle smell of breakfast cereal
and was filled with the hum of a motor. It was the sound of a machine squeezing oil from
canola seeds.
"Conservation can do as much as biodiesel. But biodiesel could be part of the answer,"
Peterson said. "It's something that can never be grown in excess. The energy need is so
huge."
The rising price of petroleum has made biodiesel competitive, but profit margins are
razor thin and few farmers in the region seem willing to switch to seed oils. Peterson
said extra research dollars would help find new production efficiencies and plant strains
suited for dry Inland Northwest soil. He noted that an estimated $100,000 per minute is
being spent on the war in Iraq. "Just give us a few minutes and we could have a pretty
spectacular energy program."
BUILDING AN INDUSTRY FROM THE GROUND UP
Biodiesel might help save the planet and reduce the nation's dependence on foreign oil,
but Tim Stearns has another hope for the plant-based fuel. Each day, about $25 million
flows out of the state of Washington to pay for the fossil fuels that power the state, said
Stearns, a senior energy policy specialist with the state's Department of Community,
Trade and Economic Development.
If the fuel could be grown and processed locally, this could mean millions of additional
dollars "bouncing around" in the state, Stearns said. Private investors are working with
the state on at least six prospective processing plants for oil seeds, he said.
But these processors will likely rely on imported soy oil from the Midwest or canola from
Canada. Currently, only about 4,000 acres of canola is grown in the state - less than 1
percent of what would be needed under the proposed minimum biodiesel mandate. For
the Inland Northwest to truly benefit from biofuels, the energy needs to be grown locally,
Stearns said. That could be a monumental challenge.
Then again, nobody ever said ending an addiction to oil would be easy.
"We're basically building an industry from scratch," Stearns said.
Canola is a strain of the rapeseed plant bred to have low contents of erucic acid. The
name is an acronym for "Canadian oil, low content," which is also a reference to where
the plant was first bred. Canada remains a leading producer of canola. The changes
have made the plant easier to grow and easier to digest than rapeseed, which is a
member of the same family of plants as mustard and broccoli. For each gallon of oil, 23
pounds of canola seed are needed. Crop yields vary greatly depending on seed strain
and rainfall, but a typical acre of canola plants will produce enough oil for 65 gallons of
biodiesel.
THIS SERIES
Today
Biodiesel is for real. Derived from plant materials, it has unleashed a "gold rush
mentality" because of its potential for filling cracks in the national economy.
Monday
Many of the region's farmers are skeptical about growing energy in their fields.
Tuesday
This week, Washington lawmakers will consider quality control standards for biodiesel.
The measure is being touted as a boon to farmers and the environment.
TYPE: Series: Biodiesel: The new green gas