All Biodiesel, All The Time: Lawmakers Consider Alternative Fuels
OLYMPIA - Tim King isn’t waiting for Washington state to get a biodiesel program up and running.
The Spokane businessman already has partners in place to purchase old crushing equipment from Canada - machinery necessary to turn canola seeds into oil.
King sees too much promise in biodiesel to delay.
“This is one of the biggest opportunities ever offered to put farms back on a sustainable economic future. We have to end up taking some risk,” King said. “Everybody’s waiting for somebody to make the first step.”
King, representing the Carbon Technology Center and the Energy Recovery Group, was one of many who testified in Olympia this week in support of several bills dealing with alternative fuels and bioenergy, including setting a 2007 deadline for requiring a minimum amounts of biodiesel and ethanol in diesel and gasoline sold in the state.
Energy independence has become the catch-phrase of this legislative session after a year that exposed how quickly gas prices here can skyrocket in response to events thousands of miles away.
“Experts tell us that the global oil shortage will only worsen, making the three dollars per gallon gasoline of summer 2005 seem affordable,” reads one of several bills that have been introduced on this topic. “Instead of leaving our economy at the mercy of global events, and the policies of foreign nations, Washington state should adopt a policy of energy independence.”
In Oregon, where the Legislature is not meeting this year, a ballot initiative with similar goals was filed Thursday by former Gov. John Kitzhaber. Supporters need 76,000 signatures in order to make the November ballot.
The big question for Washington farmers is, does a market exist that will make canola crops worth their while?
Farmer Read Smith says yes.
“If you create a market that will return a farmer his cost of living, cost of production, and reasonable return, they will bury you with this stuff,” Smith said. “The production will come.”
More than half of Smith’s 8,000 acres in St. John are dedicated to crops like soft white winter wheat, barley and alfalfa. He said he could easily redirect 25 percent of that land to crops like canola.
He just wants to make sure that the state follows through on the momentum that has built up surrounding alternative fuels.
“There’s a lot of pieces to this puzzle. If we don’t do it right the first time, we’ll fix it,” Smith said. “But we need to get going, we need to get this industry started down the road and analyze every piece and component as we go along.”
King said he’s hoping that farmers will feel confident enough about the commitment from the state and companies like his that they will go ahead and start planting canola soon.
Otherwise, he’ll have to go to North Dakota or Canada to get the seed to crush in the crushers, which he hopes to have up and running in up to four different locations in Eastern Washington by the summer.
Rep. Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, and sponsor of several of the bills, said she wants to ensure that all aspects of the industry are based in, and benefit, the state.
Washingtonians spend $25 million every day on fuel, “and all of those $25 million, each and every cent, are going out of the state of Washington,” Holmquist said.
She said the measures would create more jobs and a diversified agricultural economy.
“You have to look down the road,” Holmquist said. “Future generations of Washington state will benefit.”
One of the most expensive bills is a $100 million measure that creates the “energy freedom program,” which will provide loans for research and development of new and renewable energy and biofuel sources - like solar and wind power - and for development of renewable energy and biofuel facilities.
Lawmakers acknowledge that 100 percent independence is a long way off, and are starting small, looking at just requiring 2 percent of biodiesel in diesel and between 2.5 percent and 10 of ethanol in gasoline sold in Washington by July 1, 2007.
Some are opposed to the idea of issuing a mandate in order to create demand.
“If the biodiesel industry is viable, and it appears that it is, it will grow and be financed privately,” Chris McCabe, with Association of Washington Businesses, told lawmakers during the public hearing.
Bill Kidd, representing the Western States Petroleum Association, agreed.
“Incentives are great,” he testified. “Mandates are a distortion in the market.”
But Gov. Chris Gregoire said that the firm dates are necessary for farmers.
“This is a huge risk for them,” Gregoire said. “In light of the risk they are willing to do by going ahead and growing these crops, they need to know there’s going to be a market there.”
Holmquist said she hoped the bills - several of which have bipartisan support - would be out of committee by next week, and on the House floor before the end of the month.
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The biofuel bills are House Bills 2738, 2664, 2665, 2666, 2663, 2775, 2939 and 2393