Senate’s Fuel Crop: Straw
You know a debate lacks substance when both sides are reduced to offering up straw men! In a recent Senate Agricultural Committee hearing on the food-versus-fuel debate, Sen. Ben Nelson’s (D-Neb) provided this witty sound bite:
Funny, yes. But more important, the comment serves to highlight the lack of anything positive that can come from the food-for-fuel debate at this point. Instead of making more hay out of issues with ethanol from corn, the US Senate Agricultural Committee should be discussing things like the emerging fuel crops and their ability to enhance the availability of alternative transportation fuels. There’s certainly plenty of food to fuel those discussions.
For instance, if the Senate Agricultural Committee had just visited the website of the agency whose budget they appropriate – the USDA’s – they’d have learned about the International Workshop on Sorghum for Biofuels which began in Houston, Texas today. Sorghum may be one of the most attractive non-food crops as indications are that it grows well on marginal land – land that is unsuitable for traditional food crops. That’s something to talk about.
Such opportunities, and the technologies to capitalize on them, are important topics for discussion right now. Instead of rehashing the first generation of ethanol production, hopefully we’ll be able to write a blog post soon about Senators meeting to accelerate the next generation of ethanol technology.
Until then, we’ll be right here hard at work optimizing our enzymes for straw.
