interview interview Biofuel for the Future How Fuel Alcohol Can Solve Our Energy Problems & Feed the World

David Blume started his ecological training young. He and his father Jerry organically grew almost all the food their family ate on a city lot in San Francisco in the mid-1960s. He taught his first ecology class in 1970, and after majoring in Ecological Biology and Biosystematics at San Francisco State University, he worked on experimental projects, first for NASA, and then as a member of the Mother Earth News Eco-Village alternative building and alternative energy teams. When the energy crisis of 1978-79 struck, Blume started the American Homegrown Fuel Co., an educational organization that taught thousands of people how to produce and use low-cost alcohol fuel at home or on the farm. In 1993 he founded the International Institute for Ecological Agriculture, dedicated to healing the planet while providing for the human commu- nity with research, education and the implementation of socially just, ecologically sound forms of agriculture. The organization is currently working to establish a driver-owned cooperative biofuels station in Santa Cruz, California — a story enlarged in his book, Alcohol Can Be a Gas, and in the interview that follows.

ACRES U.S.A. On the topic of fuel alcohol, distributing wealth back to the countryside David Blume we hear both sides — one, it has no future and away from centralized corporations. at all, and two, it is the wave of the future. What is your assessment? ACRES U.S.A. The big perspective that’s come down the pike recently has been that DAVID BLUME. Basically, alcohol is one the industry is taking corn away from live- of our best answers to peak oil. If we take stock and from people in order to make fuel a look at what’s going to happen if we alcohol. How do you respond to that? don’t go to alcohol or biofuels, it’s a pretty bleak future. We’re talking about how oil BLUME. First of all, when the press says 25 companies would supply us with energy in percent of the corn crop has been diverted to the future. They’re not going to go out of make alcohol fuel, that’s misleading. Almost business just because they’re running out 70 percent of each kernel of corn is starch, of oil — they have a plan, and that plan and starch is something that cattle don’t do is pretty scary. What they’re likely to do is very well on. We’ve known for a long time push coal-to-liquid fuel, oil shale to oil, and that feeding grain to cows causes acidosis expand tar sands dramatically to make up and feedlot bloat and a lot of other prob- for the shortfall in natural petroleum. All lems because cattle aren’t really evolved to of those solutions are tens to thousands of eat grain. They’re mainly browsers — they times more toxic and climate-destroying eat woody brush, they’ll eat pretty grass if than the current use of petroleum, but those you give it to them, but when it comes to options are precisely what we’re going to starch, we’re really giving something to cows end up with if we don’t start making fuels they aren’t biologically meant to eat. When from renewable sources. Looking at all the we make alcohol fuel, we take the starch possibilities, alcohol is extremely positive out of that corn in the process, and what’s from an environmental viewpoint and also left over is high-quality feed, as far as grain from social justice viewpoint in terms of goes, which is mostly 30 percent protein, fat

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9 interview interview

would change the economics for farming “Alcohol is extremely positive from an in the region. Right now you’ve got little choice — you can grow corn or you can environmental viewpoint and also from social grow soybeans. I mean, if you have large acreage and you’re going to produce a justice viewpoint in terms of distributing wealth large amount of something, those are the only two crops that anybody buys. back to the countryside and away from centralized Alcohol changes that formula, because an alcohol plant tends to be very flexible corporations.” in what it takes in to produce its product. Anything with starch or sugar will work.

and mineral and some cellulose, which BLUME. That’s right. We can talk about ACRES U.S.A. Are the innovators trying is basically good for cattle. If we feed cellulose alcohol in a minute, but let’s to get some of these other crops besides that byproduct to cattle instead of the stick to some of the more conventional corn to work now? original corn, we actually get about 17 crops for the moment. First, sweet sor- percent more meat. In the case of cattle, ghum, which will grow as far north BLUME. As ecologist Barry Commoner then, instead of it being a situation of as Ohio and all the way down to the used to say about alcohol, it’s always alcohol reducing the food supply, the very most southern part of the United possible to do a good thing stupidly, and opposite is true. Now, you and I both States, will generate anywhere from 600 the big plants, the 100-million-gallon know the best way to feed cattle isn’t to 1,100 gallons of alcohol per acre per year plants are all focused on corn. giving them corn, anyway, but if we are — the further south, the more alcohol There are a couple problems with that. going to do it, we should at least get the you can produce, because you can get First of all, really big plants are not a starch out of the way. more sorghum cane. Sorghum grows in good idea. These big plants might draw a wider range of places than corn and corn from 30 or 40 miles away. Now ACRES U.S.A. You mentioned in your uses similar equipment for soil prep and if we’re going to do something like we book Alcohol Can Be a Gas that corn is planting, so it’s a very easy crop to work talked about earlier, closing the nutrient not necessarily the best feedstock for fuel into a rotation with other crops. Sugar loop where we use the byproducts from production. What other feedstocks does beets and fodder beets are really good the alcohol plant, the leftover mash, to your research tell us would be superior? BLUME. Corn is not the best crop to “Mesquite trees can actually produce something grow everywhere in the United States, anyway — it grows well in certain areas like 350 gallons of alcohol per acre without any but not in others. Just like you wouldn’t grow sugarcane in Ohio because it’s too cold there, there are a lot of crops that inputs, just by harvesting the pods, which are 35 do really well in particular places and not so well in others, so what we ought percent sugar.” to grow is the best crop for energy in the region where conditions are best for it. put it back on the soil, 25 miles is too For instance, in the Southwest, where farther north, where things are cooler far to go. Small plants, ones that produce it’s pretty dry, it’s pretty hard to grow and higher yields can be expected — for 5 million gallons or less, might take the corn crops — but if you take a look at instance, around 1,100 gallons per acre products from immediately around the the natural landscape of the Southwest, for fodder beets, and like corn, fod- plant, maybe 500, maybe 1,500 acres, you’ll find that there are 70 million acres der beets can be stored for most of the and maybe a collection of a handful of of mesquite trees. That’s almost as many year. In Europe dairies base their feed farmers is all it would take to run that acres as we use to grow corn in an aver- regimen on beets, not on grain. With plant. In those cases, all the byproducts age year. Those mesquite trees can actu- beets we can get about four times the can go right back to the land, feeding the ally produce something like 350 gallons yield of alcohol because corn only yields soil, so those farmers don’t need to buy of alcohol per acre without any inputs, about 250 gallons, and we also get twice chemical fertilizer or anything else. Once just by harvesting the pods, which are 35 as much animal feed per acre. Now of you have a setup like that, where you’re percent sucrose. course beets, like anything else, should talking about a few farmers around one be rotated, you shouldn’t grow them in still, they can all be growing different ACRES U.S.A. You’re just going to use the same place except maybe once every crops that mature at different times and the pods? three years. The idea of a number of spread out the harvest season, and they crops being grown in the Midwest, all can be rotating those crops between of them capable of producing alcohol, each other. One guy grows sorghum, the

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9 Interview next year he grows beets, the third year BLUME. That’s the next step. You buy of winter in Decatur, you’d be pretty he grows Jerusalem artichokes, and the the alcohol from Bob, who is producing happy to have fresh shrimp produced at fourth year he might grow something it, Bob goes out and gets his tractor fixed the local alcohol plant rather than some- else. There’s quite a few crops they could locally with some of the money you gave thing frozen and shipped from the coast. grow. But a small alcohol plant could him, the mechanic takes that money and So it’s far from being a food-versus- handle all of it. gets a haircut locally, then the haircutter fuel issue. A small-scale alcohol plant is goes out and gets a massage, and that a central piece of a really diverse local food product system that produces both “The idea of a number of crops being grown energy and food. ACRES U.S.A. You know, social philoso- in the Midwest, all of them capable of producing pher and author Wendell Barry one time wrote that he was something of a Luddite alcohol, would change the economics for farming in this sense — he said that while he was not against having machinery, he in the region.” wouldn’t hesitate to put the machine to death in order to save the community rather than let the machine put the com- ACRES U.S.A. What would it take to money then goes from the massage ther- munity to death to save the financiers. implement something like that? First apist back to buying vegetables from Bob, of all, is the alcohol to be consumed who took the byproduct from making BLUME. Exactly. We’re taking the same in the same area that produces the raw alcohol fuel and is now running green- philosophy and saying let’s turn the feedstock? houses to produce organic vegetables machine into something that builds and mushrooms and a lot of other value- community. BLUME. That’s what I’m in favor of. added products. All of that can come out What we promote in the book is that of a small alcohol plant, and we go into ACRES U.S.A. If it can’t build commu- farmers implement a community sup- a lot of detail in the book about how nity, then it doesn’t belong. ported agriculture model for energy. you can take, for instance, the byproduct Let’s say you’ve got a million-gallon per of corn, the dried storage grains, and BLUME. And that’s exactly the Amish year plant that’s taking in maybe a thou- feed it to farmed fish, then take the fish philosophy about farming — if it doesn’t sand acres of good energy crops, grown water and run that either out into your build community, then that machine by maybe two, maybe three, maybe four fields or through greenhouses that are isn’t adopted. That’s a good philosophy. farmers. First, you go ahead and pro- duce that million gallons. Now it turns out that a pretty busy fuel station in an “That’s the bottom line that no one’s talking average town will sell about a million gallons a year, so that’s a pretty good about — small-scale alcohol fuel can dramatically match. Next, these farmers could set up in or near town — maybe at the local revitalize rural areas with locally produced, Grange Hall, which always has a good parking lot — an above-ground tank with a pump where people can pull up, essentially organic food.” slide their card through, and fill their cars. Those farmers would thus be selling alcohol as a value-added product direct growing organic vegetables — the air in ACRES U.S.A. We’ve discussed some of to the consumer. There’s no distribu- which can be supplemented with carbon these models way back even before the tors or brokers in the middle, there’s no dioxide from your fermenting tanks, Carter administration, and as a matter of oil companies in the middle, and those so now you’re getting three, four, five fact, we ran articles on it in a little maga- farmers are maybe selling that alcohol times the yield per square foot that you zine called Gasohol U.S.A. Why can’t we for $3 or $3.50 a gallon and making a would in an open field. In other words, get our public policy to accommodate sustainable living on the crops they’re we start changing the formula for how this model you’re talking about and that producing on their land. That million many thousand acres one guy can farm we’ve talked about now for decades? gallons of alcohol might bring in $2, $3, to having jobs per acre, which are created $3.5 million, and the plant cost should locally. That’s the bottom line that no BLUME. Because public policy right only be $1 million. one’s talking about — small-scale alco- now is framed by major corporations. hol fuel can dramatically revitalize rural The business model we just talked about ACRES U.S.A. It also keeps the money areas with locally produced, essentially essentially puts people directly in contact at home, too. organic food. I’ll tell you, in the middle with the producers, the farmers, and as

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9 interview we both know, that means more than BLUME. Right. Now for the food- the price of food, then you have to have a a trillion dollars’ worth of income for versus-fuel arguments of today — first shortage of the food, too. corporations in the food industry alone, of all, ethanol is getting blamed for the not even counting the energy industry. increased price of corn, which is suppos- ACRES U.S.A. You also have to have So this is definitely not going to be done edly causing people to go hungry. The people who seem to know nothing about by government, and it’s not going to be increased price of corn has nothing to the speculative markets. done by corporations — it’s going to be do with alcohol fuel and everything to done locally by entrepreneurs. Also, up until recently gasoline was too cheap for us to make this model work, because “The poor are not starving because there’s a basically the margin you’d have on alco- hol fuel wouldn’t work, but now that lack of food, they’re starving from a lack of money.” things have changed permanently, now that we’re actually running out of oil, this kind of model is actually going to be do with the price of oil, as well as a little BLUME. That’s the place to go next, forced into existence over the objections bit to do with profit-taking by the food which is who is buying these corn con- of the government and the corporations. manufacturers. Up until this year, when tracts? Almost a year ago, we pointed out People are just going to start doing it. you took a look at a box of cornflakes, that oil companies were buying inflated you were looking at a price of $4.50, and corn contracts to drive up the price ACRES U.S.A. We do have a public rela- 5 cents of that price was the corn. Now of corn and basically inhibit this huge tions problem, and this is the one where prices have gone up, and out of that box amount of capital that was pouring into they’re constantly drumming the idea of cornflakes that now costs 50 cents alcohol plants. We said watch, the price that if you use agriculture to create fuel, more, the corn accounts for maybe 7 or 8 of corn is going to go to $5, and boy did people will starve to death. How do you cents. Where is all the rest of the money it ever! Now there are pretty good reports answer that? going? Other than the profit, how about coming out that the futures trading sys- the bag that holds the cornflakes that’s tem, which is completely unregulated, is BLUME. You know that whole propa- inside the box? That’s more costly than being gamed by both the oil companies ganda ploy from back in 1978, “Food the corn. How about the energy it took and by OPEC and basically driving up Versus Fuel,” was coined by the American to cook the corn to make the cornflakes? the price of food. You might say they’re Petroleum Institute in a press release. That takes oil, and it costs more money putting money in the pockets of farm- They’ve just trotted it out again because than the corn. How about the box itself ers with one hand but pick-pocketing it it’s a very hard argument to fight against. and the energy it took to pulp trees? Can with the other by raising the price of all It’s a moral argument — in other words, you imagine how much energy it takes the inputs dramatically. You take a look how dare you take the food away from to pulp trees and to make the millions at the profits of companies like General starving Africans to put it in your SUV? of boxes you need to sell the cornflakes? Mills or Kellogg’s and they’re not down The problem with this argument is that The ink on the outside of the box is made because of the price of corn — they’re every bit of it is a lie. Right now we have from oil, and that’s more expensive than up 60, 80, 90 percent because those twice as many calories being produced the corn inside. Then you throw the whole futures contracts the oil companies have in the world as we need to feed everyone thing on a truck, a box mostly full of air, been buying, they’re not making a profit on the planet. Farmers are very produc- and you ship it halfway across the coun- on those, they’re selling the corn for $3 a tive — so productive, in fact, that we try from the Midwest to California, and bushel just like they always did — they’re can’t even find places to sell everything it’s easy to see that the energy to ship it taking a loss in an attempt to crush the we can grow. The problem is that food is certainly way more expensive than the biofuels industry. unfortunately is a commodity, and that corn in the box. So when the price of oil means you have to have money to buy or energy goes up, all the components that ACRES U.S.A. Is there a danger that it. So the poor are not starving because go into making that box of cornflakes go speculators are going to drop it on the there’s a lack of food, they’re starving up in turn. When you start talking about farmer after they get them used to hav- from a lack of money. Now, if you’re in the demand for ethanol causing the price ing it up to a certain level — suddenly Brazil and you start an alcohol plant in of fuel to go up, that’s pure nonsense. But drop it down and break everybody that your village and you make money sell- there’s even a bigger reason why it’s non- way, especially the alcohol plants? ing this value-added product, then you sense — last year we had the biggest corn now have money to buy food. So first of crop in 33 years. We had so much corn last BLUME. That’s the other half of what I all, alcohol fuel on an international basis year we didn’t have enough silos to put it just described. The oil companies get the gives a great hand-up to people who are in. We couldn’t even pile it up fast enough price up, and then they raise the price of running small plants around the world. outside of the elevators. If you’re going all the inputs, but when the price crash- to have a theory that says competition es, they’re not going to reduce the price ACRES U.S.A. So the argument is funda- between ethanol and food is driving up of the inputs. They’ll break the farmers. mentally flawed.

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9 interview

ACRES U.S.A. Let’s move on to cellulose We don’t need any fancy technology to talk about this in the book where the alcohol — is technology going to make it do this! If you do the simple math, if kelp that grows offshore can be grown feasible? If so, we could grow poplar trees every county in the United States took its like the Chinese do it, on floating nets. along the highways in the rainbelt parts sewage and processed it through cattail We’re not talking about infringing on of the country at tape-measure intervals, marshes, we would need less than 2 per- the natural habitat of kelp — we’re talk- harvest them every couple of years, and cent of the equivalent of all of our farm- ing about going out where it’s a little probably fuel the entire automobile fleet land to make all the alcohol we would deeper, spreading nets on the surface, of the United States. Is that feasible? Are need to replace all the gasoline and diesel and growing it there — kelp grows a foot we ever going to have cellulose alcohol? in the United States. Less than 2 percent and a half a day! And it’s made out of fructose, basically sugar. We can process that kelp very easily into alcohol — the “If you ask me where the innovation is in the American Gas Association studied this back in the 1980s, back during our pre- United States today, it’s where it’s always been — vious energy crisis. They said that we could produce 15 quads of energy — it’s on the farm.” quad is a big number, it’s a quadrillion BTU — from the kelp off the California coast alone. To put that in perspective, BLUME. First of all, cellulose fuel is of the equivalent land — and it wouldn’t all the gasoline and diesel in the country actually being made right now for 50 all have to be farmland! Artificial cattail we use is only 23 million quads, so most cents a gallon in Brazil. They’re making marshes don’t have to be on good land. of the fuel could have been supplied it using an old process called acid hydro- simply by cleaning up the pollution in lysis, which is not patentable anymore ACRES U.S.A. Are you suggesting that the water off California and taking that and therefore nobody in the United we could have something akin to a rice kelp and making alcohol. Now as you States wants to use it. They’re doing paddy, but using the effluent from the know, organic farmers around the world it with sugarcane fiber left over from sewage instead of good water? use fish emulsion and kelp solution for crushing the cane. So we already know fertilizer, and the kelp solution left over how to do it. BLUME. They already do it — they after making the alcohol has all these just don’t harvest the cattails and make incredible nutrients. We could take the ACRES U.S.A. Just the bagasse? alcohol from them. A lot of rural sew- pipelines that we’ve been using for oil age treatment plants are now using wet and deliver kelp solution back out to BLUME. That’s right. But that’s not the marshes full of cattails. the Midwest for farmers to use instead whole thing. Basically, the question we’re of petroleum-based fertilizers. We thus looking at is how do we get the yield up ACRES U.S.A. How easy is it to harvest not only recover the nutrients that are so we don’t need as much land? That’s the cattails? Is it like harvesting rice? Do dumped in the ocean and turn them into the big problem with cellulose. There are you dry up the pond or what? fuel, but we also return all those trace a couple of ways of doing it that don’t nutrients back to the soil where they require cellulose, so let’s look at them BLUME. First I dry up the pond. I mow originated. There’s no reason why we first. By the side of the road, especially the tops and use that for hay, blowing it couldn’t do this with existing technol- in rainy, wet areas, what plant do you with a silage cutter off to the side and ogy, no new breakthroughs — we can frequently see? Think about it, going into a cart, and then I use the silage cut- do it today. down the road, they’re big green plants, ter on the second pass and take the bot- look a lot like sugarcane, have little hot tom 3 feet, where all the starch is. We can ACRES U.S.A. Have you been successful dogs on a stick for flowers? They’re cat- then use two enzymes to break the starch in getting anyone to adopt one of these tails. Now cattails are pretty interest- down into sugar, ferment it into alcohol, models and getting that kind of a plant ing plants because there are 500 places and we’re there. What I’m saying is we established? It appears to us about the around the country currently processing don’t have to go to cellulose to replace only plants now being constructed are sewage using cattails. The sewage plant all the fuel in the country, and we can do based on corn. does the first part of the processing, and it with a fraction of the land at the same then before they release the water into time that we clean up our environment. BLUME. In Brazil they’re building a plant the river or ocean, they run it through a There are other ways to go about making right now based on cellulose. In terms of cattail marsh. The cattails take all the dis- alcohol on a big scale, and we can do it cattail starch, we did this ourselves back solved nutrients out of the water, which without using any farm land at all. in the ‘80s in Arcadia, California — the leaves the marsh pretty darn clean. When site of the first cattail marsh sewage you grow cattails under those conditions, ACRES U.S.A. How is that possible? system. In terms of the integrated farm using sewage, you can yield 7,500 gallons where you’d take the byproduct from of alcohol per acre compared to corn at BLUME. Every Norwegian fisherman making the alcohol and produce fish 250, and that’s a simple starch recipe. you talk to will tell you about kelp. We with it and then take the fish solution and

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9 interview grow vegetables, Archer Daniels Midland ACRES U.S.A. And you’re basically say- oldest profession — we’re really good did that with 10 acres of greenhouses ing such innovation is on the way wheth- at this. We do it more energy-efficiently in Decatur. They took the byproduct er the oil companies like it or not. nowadays, we have better materials to from alcohol fuel and raised tilapia, and work with, and we can buy really good they took the tilapia water and used it BLUME. If you ask me where the inno- enzymes for cheap — but basically it’s to raise lettuce. The interesting thing vation is in the United States today, it’s the same thing farmers did for centuries, about this was, there was no economy where it’s always been — it’s on the farm. making whiskey and selling it on the side of scale — basically, every cubic foot The people who have been smartest and to pay off the note. Now, the modern of water will produce a pound of fish know how to make things work have alcohol plant is more than just making every six months. Archer Daniels had always been on the farm, so the people alcohol, it’s about making all the byprod- 180 tanks, but any one of us could have that are going to make this work are the ucts count and making sure you take care two of these tanks in a greenhouse on farmers. of your soil in the process without using our farm and produce $150,000 worth chemicals. If we can take the oil compan- of fish, sold locally, using the byproduct ACRES U.S.A. Not the universities. ies completely out of the loop, they can’t from our own alcohol plant and be just influence your prices anymore — they as efficient as Archer Daniels was with a BLUME. Not the universities. The only can’t tamper with the price of fertilizer 10-acre greenhouse. thing that the farmers need now is good and make your alcohol more expensive information, a decent set of drawings and if you’re not buying it from them. They ACRES U.S.A. You said “was” — do they a basic outline of how to make it work, can’t inflate your costs by increasing still do it? and they’ll adapt it for their local com- the price of RoundUp Ready seed 200 munity and make it happen. That’s why I percent in five years because you’re not BLUME. Get this — a couple of years ago wrote the book — everything the farmers using that seed — you’re saving your the new president of the board of Archer need to know to start a program like this own, and you’re doing your weed con- Daniels Midland came from Chevron is in the book, there’s nothing held back, trol using byproducts from the alcohol Oil, and she said those greenhouses were no secret sauce, nothing you have to buy process. not part of their core business. She had extra, it’s all there, how to make the alco- them pulled, undoubtedly because they hol, how to raise the fish, and so on. ACRES U.S.A. You’re buoyantly optimis- showed a green solution that was fright- tic about how this is going to work. What ening in its implications for oil. Archer ACRES U.S.A. We had some false starts do you feel will actually trigger a real Daniels Midland had been delivering back about the time of the Carter admin- start or movement in this direction? that fish, still swimming, to restaurants istration, when farmers thought they and markets all over the East Coast in could set up a little still in their barn and BLUME. I think it’s already started. trucks running on bio-diesel from their cook their own alcohol. They discovered People are now getting the picture that own soybean oil. If a giant corporation that you had to keep it about as clean as we have reached peak oil. The price is like that can think that green, we small a hospital amphitheater, however, so we going up, and they can’t stop it from guys can do a much better job and we bypassed the idea that it’s an individual going up because there is not enough can do it closer and local. So yes, all the farmer’s thing. It has to be a company oil to go around right now. I talk to parts of the system I’m talking about or a co-op or something like that, isn’t colleagues, people in farming, in the have been done, and we’re hoping to that correct? government, in colleges, in Africa, in build a working model once we find a good piece of land in the next year or two so that farmers from anywhere can “We’re saying let’s turn the machine into come out, put their hands on it, and see how the whole thing works together. something that builds community.”

ACRES U.S.A. Are you going to have fill- ing stations that make the fuel available BLUME. I disagree with that. I think a Latin America, and they’re all saying the to the contiguous community? practical-sized operation would probably same thing. They’re saying, “We’re not be in the 250,000-gallon range, but that getting full deliveries of our fuel any- BLUME. We already have funding for size plant would fit in the average guy’s more. We need x-gallons of diesel, but the station, and it should be up and run- barn, and the making of alcohol is not they’re only delivering two-thirds of that ning in six months. Then we’ll put in the rocket science. Look at whiskey — there because they’re saying they don’t have plant that will supply that station — a are small distilleries everywhere that make enough.” They’re paying $12 a gallon in small plant producing about a million alcohol. It’s not that complicated. You do South Africa, and the Australian National gallons per year. We’re going to show the need to do things properly, correctly, and Farmers’ Federation called me the other whole cycle in Santa Cruz, California. there are some details involved, but once day saying they’re paying $10 a gallon. So you know those, you can be successful. the incentive is there and the economics Making alcohol is mankind’s second- are there — the thing that killed the alco-

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9 interview hol movement in the ‘80s was the drop in $500 billion — that’s how much money the price of gasoline to $10 a barrel under we need to replace all of the gasoline and the Reagan/Bush administration. If the diesel on the entire planet. That’s a big prices had stayed up, farmers would have number, $500 billion, but look at what stayed in business making alcohol. we’ve spent in Iraq already — we’ve spent more than $500 billion there, and ACRES U.S.A. If you factor in the intel- we’re still spending. If we had spent that Acres U.S.A. is the national journal of ligence upon which most economists money building alcohol plants in every sustainable agriculture, standing virtually alone with a real track record — over 35 agree, 40 percent of the military budget country in the world, alcohol plants that years of continuous publication. Eash is used to keep the oil pipelines and ship make fuel, raise fish, raise vegetables, issue is packed full of information eco- lanes open. If you added that to the price raise crops — that basically provided consultants regularly charge top dollar of a gallon of gasoline, it’d probably have the whole world with all the energy and for. You’ll be kept up-to-date on all of to sell for around $18 a gallon. Would all the food it needed — what would we the news that affects agriculture — regu- you have a comment on that? have left to fight over? lations, discoveries, research updates, organic certification issues, and more. For more information on David Blume and the BLUME. The world uses 500 billion gal- To subscribe, call lons of fuel a year — that’s the whole International Institute for Ecological Agriculture, visit www.permaculture.com. Blume’s book, world, not just the United States. Now, to Alcohol Can Be a Gas, is available from the 1-800-355-5313 build an alcohol plant, once you’ve got it Acres U.S.A. bookstore. (toll-free in the U.S. & Canada) down, only costs about a dollar per gal- 512-892-4400 / fax 512-892-4448 lon of production. So if you want to build P.O. Box 91299 / Austin, TX 78709 a 5 million gallon a year alcohol plant, it [email protected] might cost you $5 million if you bought all new parts. Thus, 500 billion gallons of Or subscribe online at: production would take an investment of www.acresusa.com

Reprinted from September 2008 • Vol. 38, No. 9