Alternate energy pursuit could be boon to farms

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PASCO -- Farmers might find ways to make money with alternative sources of energy, and a former member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff suggests they could help fight terrorism at the same time by reducing our dependence on foreign oil.

"Clean energy technologies are emerging essentially as another crop farmers can harvest," said Rhys Roth, a co-director for Climate Solutions, a nonprofit project in Olympia that would like to see the Northwest become a leader in clean energy. "We're building on the clean energy base of hydropower in the region."

About 250 people attended the two-day regional conference, which concluded Wednesday, to learn about bringing alternative energy to the farm.

Last week, a Vancouver company, Nordic Biofuels, said it planned to build a $150 million ethanol plant in Longview to process 30 million bushels of corn a year into 84 million gallons of fuel.

An ethanol plant also has been proposed for Moses Lake to use grain grown in Washington.

"Wheat farmers are struggling with the lowest prices since the Depression," said Gretchen Borck, a spokeswoman for the Washington Association of Wheat Growers in Ritzville.

Using Northwest wheat and barley to make ethanol, for example, would be an opportunity for farmers to augment their incomes in an environmentally friendly manner, she said.

Washington is the nation's fourth-ranked wheat state, producing 168 million bushels a year.

Portland General Electric is working cooperatively with dairies in Boardman and Salem, Ore., on digester projects that turn cow manure into methane gas -- now dubbed biogas -- and leave behind a compost-like fiber to enrich soil, said Joe Barra, director of distributed energy for the utility.

"It doesn't cost the farm anything," he said, and it's one means of manure management.

The Northwest accounts for 8 percent of the nation's dairy farm receipts, and milk is the second-largest agricultural commodity in Washington, behind apples.

Biogas is a possible alternative to natural gas for fueling electricity-generating turbines.

"It's important for us to diversify where we get our energy," Roth said, contending that could help bring stability to natural gas pricing.

Biodiesel, vegetable-oil-based diesel, and ethanol, a grain fuel, are alternatives to Middle Eastern petroleum, he said.

Last fall, retired Navy Adm. Thomas Moorer, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former CIA director James Woolsey and Robert McFarlane, a former national security adviser to President Reagan, all advocated renewable, alternative energy sources as one way to improve national security.

In the Sept. 19 letter to several members of Congress, the three men wrote: "It is not enough just to ensure uninterruptible supplies of transportation fuels and electricity. We must also act to advance the security of those supplies, and the nation's ability to meet its needs in all corners of the country at all times."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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