War & oil (part III)

America is at war. One of the main reasons is our dependence on middle eastern oil. We must take action to reduce (then end) this dependence. One way that Nutmeggers can act to reduce our dependence is to manufacture, distribute and consume alternative fuels here in CT.

In "War & oil (part II)" I showed that we have the ability to use ethanol (and biodiesel... either one is considered a "biofuel.") here in Connecticut. Now looking at another of the three components...

Manufacture

Just last month (July 5), a biodiesel manufacturer (BioPur) opened in Bethlehem, CT. An ethanol manufacturer, Xethanol has plans to expand into Connecticut too.

So business may very well be taking care of this on its own. But the state also just announced $60,000,000 in farm subsidies. Was there any thought in linking this $60million to energy independence? Just today, there was another farm article in the Waterbury Rep-Am (by John McKenna).

If the farm grants were linked, then we could do something fairly simple. We could locate biofuel factories next to farms to make the entire process of biofuel manufacturing as profitable as possible, so that businesses can take it over. It would be a three step process:

1) The farm grows the corn.
2) The ethanol factory extracts certain ingredients from the corn.
3) The corn byproduct gets fed to the chickens.

(And unrelated to ethanol, we could then use the chicken manure to make electricity. Some interesting links on "chicken manure electricity" are here to a Washington Post page and this clean energy organization page.)

Last January, Governor Rell called for action on "energy issues." Our Legislative majority dropped the ball. We need to take action.

Tim White
State Representative nominee (R-89)
Bethany, Cheshire & Prospect
TimWhite98@yahoo.com