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The Wisconsin State Journal Bill Wineke Column: Chip in to Tackle Fuel Crisis

Posted on: Saturday, 4 February 2006, 15:00 CST

By Bill Wineke, The Wisconsin State Journal

Feb. 3--President Bush has found the answer to the nation's energy crisis: wood chips.

During his State of the Union address Tuesday, the president pledged "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol, not just from corn but from wood chips, stalks or switch grass. ..."

My heart sort of fluttered in my breast when I heard that because, at last, the president and I have some values in common.

Ask any of my neighbors down in the town of Dunkirk and they will tell you that I am the wood-chip king of Ridgewood Drive.

I have created wood-chip paths through the wetlands of my back yard, wood-chip glades in the small woods adjoining the Yahara River, wood-chip mulches around the flower beds and wood-chip parking areas for the lawn tractor and kayaks.

I have a 12-year-old Toyota pickup truck that has only 74,000 miles on its odometer. That truck is used primarily to haul wood chips. A couple of weeks ago, when temperatures were above 40, I was out at a nearby tree lot scooping up wood chips from a tree-thinning exercise.

So, I understand why the president loves wood chips, and if he can figure out a way for me to fuel my vehicles with wood chips, I'm going to do it. My only fear is that the president will be so successful that my heretofore plentiful supply of free wood chips will dry up and I will have to resort to gravel paths.

There is, unfortunately, one little fly in the ointment -- and I know those of you who think I am too critical of the president will seize on this "but" moment -- but there is a fly in the ointment and here it is:

The president's Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at its National Renewable Energy Laboratory next week. It seems the laboratory's budget is being cut by 15 percent and the layoffs will be concentrated on researchers in its wind and biomass departments.

In other words, even as the president is elevating wood chips with one hand, his other is undermining the very research that would make wood-chip ethanol viable.

Is he being hypocritical? I doubt it. I doubt very much the president ever heard of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, but that, of course, may be part of the problem.

At any rate, the laboratory's budget was cut by $27 million. The president announced Tuesday his 2007 budget would increase funding for alternative fuels like wood chips by $59 million. I don't know how related those figures are -- but it sounds as if the net wood-chip increase would be $32 million.

That's a fair amount of change, I'll admit. But put it in perspective: The Senate Energy Committee estimates that every 1 penny increase in the cost of gasoline costs American consumers almost $1.4 billion a year. If the president really wanted to fund research, he could ask for a penny's increase in the gas tax and make a huge difference.

In the meantime, the researchers are looking for other jobs.

Kind of makes you wonder whether the wood-chip fuel initiative was even worth mentioning in the State of the Union, doesn't it?

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Wisconsin State Journal

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Source: The Wisconsin State Journal

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