FUEL FOR THE FUTURE

Just before Election Day, I fueled up my regular car, then the
diesel. Two days before, I had ordered my next ton of corn for the
corn stove. The price of feed corn had risen since summer by about 10
percent. The unleaded gasoline going into the car contained 10
percent ethanol derived from corn. Why was the price of gasoline so
low compared to last year when the cost of a major component had risen?

There are now two grades of whole corn: the corn that farmers feed
livestock and stove corn. Stove corn isn't food-quality, has a higher
btu output, has a little more cob content and is dustier. It costs
less than feed corn.

As corn is diverted from a food crop to a fuel source, it becomes
less available to the livestock operator. This will result in higher
prices. Yet the price of gasoline dropped throughout the election season.

There is not enough cropland in this country to support a wholesale
shift to food-based fuel. The answer must come from cellulosic
ethanol instead of food-based ethanol.

However the ethanol is derived, it will not power diesel, a preferred
source of transport. One plant will provide a source for both: hemp.

Hemp requires no pesticides or herbicides. It can grow in almost any
North American climate. Unfortunately, it remains illegal because it
has an undeserved association with its psychoactive cousin,
marijuana. Should hemp agriculture become legal again, it would give
the family farmer a profitable rotational crop.

Paul Stillwell

Concord