Farmers pushing for ethanol in fuel
Cleaner fuel would bring new market to area, reduce dependency on crude oil, they say
MOSES LAKE — Grant County potato farmer Mike Massey has a dream.
He wants his crop and many others to be used in the production of ethanol. Then, he wants that ethanol to be 10 percent of the state's fuel supply.
Ethanol is produced from starch and sugar, hence any crop that has starch or sugar can be used to make ethanol out of, Massey said, adding that an ethanol-inclusive fuel is much cleaner than the fuel currently used.
"There is no cleaner fuel that can be produced," he added, pointing out to the success of ethanol-inclusive fuels in states such as Montana and Minnesota.
Besides its environmental benefits, ethanol has a number of financial benefits for farmers in the area, opening a new market for them, creating a new core industry to bring into Grant County, as well as solving instances of excessive supply.
"Over-supply of corn, wheat and barley could be used to make ethanol and make it 10 percent of gasoline," Massey said, "which means a lower import of oil."
Instead of writing a check to the big oil companies in the Middle East, the check would be made out to Moses Lake farmers, Massey said. Pat Boss, executive director of the Washington State Potato Commission agreed, saying that getting away from crude oil dependency is a big focus of this bill.
"Anything we can do to use our own resources to create energy is good," Boss said. Convincing these companies and their lobbyists of the benefits of ethanol is another matter entirely.
"Petroleum (companies do) not want farmers to have a market share," he said. "It means competition and competition means reduced prices." Besides ethanol as an alternative to gasoline, the bill intends to encourage the production of bio-diesel as an alternative to diesel.
At the same time, those in favor of this bill do not want to see petroleum prices go up due to the impact of ethanol on the market.
Boss said that if incentives are to be introduced in order to require bio-fuels to be mixed with petroleum, it must be done in a way that causes no harm to the oil industry.
"We don't want to do something that raises the prices by 50 cents a gallon," Boss said.
Massey's dream of ethanol-inclusive fuel has taken him to the state capital, where he testified in favor of House Bill 1826, a bipartisan bill sponsored, among others, by state Reps. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum and Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, which encourages these alternative markets for agricultural industries.
Holmquist said that the financial diversity brought about by ethanol production would bring stability in the area's agricultural economy.
To Holmquist, her district is well equipped to produce these fuel related crops if the demand is there. HB 1826 a great bill for all areas of Washington state, and not just those where farming is key, she said.
Urban areas where air pollution is a problem would benefit, as well.
"It meets the state's desire for cleaner air and the rural areas' desire to improve the agricultural economy," she said.
Holmquist said that pushing this bill forward and supporting these crop alternatives, would bring to the forefront the completion the second half of the Columbia Basin Project, suspended in the 1990s and which now irrigates 670,000 acres out of the 1.1 million acres it was designed to reach.
Massey agreed, saying that the project might play a key role in the harvesting of crops that can be used in the production of ethanol.
"Don't sell Washington short," he said in his testimony.
Boss described Holmquist's efforts as trying to get everyone in a room, petroleum lobbyists and farmers, to come up with a plan to make the inclusion of ethanol and biodiesel a reality without causing harm to anybody.
"Conceptually, this is a good idea," he said. "Practically, it's a challenge."