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<div>Did Nancy Cheney sign? I'm just an uninformed rube lost in the wheat and pea fields!</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.allentownpa.org/prDetail.asp?prKey=285">http://www.allentownpa.org/prDetail.asp?prKey=285</a></div>
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<div><span class="bodycopy">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATE: Monday, July 24, 2006</span>
<p class="bodycopy">The mayors of the three largest communities in the Lehigh Valley on Friday announced their joint endorsement of a Climate Protection Agreement sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors.</p></div>
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<p class="bodyCopy">"There is no doubt that as local leaders, we must do all we can to encourage environmentally friendly practices, and the best way to do that is to lead by example," said Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski. "I want to thank my colleagues for joining me in this signing ceremony to demonstrate our mutual commitment not just to our own cities, but to the Lehigh Valley, the nation and the world."
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<p class="bodyCopy">The agreement calls on state and federal officials to enact policies and programs to comply with the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming, cut the United States' dependence on fossil fuels and accelerate the development of clean, economical energy resources and fuel-efficient technologies such as conservation, wind and solar energy, efficient motor vehicles, and bio-fuels.----------------------
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<p class="bodyCopy">I'd paste in the details of this Climate Protection Agreement, but it can be read at the link above.</p></div>
<div>I do not understand how we can reasonably separate the issues of global warming from CO2 emissions and fossil fuel depletion/dependence from the issue of our local transportation problems. These serious problems will impact the Moscow/Pullman area in a negative way, and thus are valid local issues for long term planning.
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<div>Other local governments are specifically addressing these crises. They recognize that the solutions can come from the bottom up. </div>
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<div>Of course the Moscow/Pullman area is not Seattle or Portland, and though it seems many tend to view the local area as making an insignificant contribution to global warming, 10-20 local areas of our size add up to the same CO2 impact as a large urban area. Perhaps looking at the solutions other cities are adopting is a good idea? I think it is clear our local governments could be doing more to address the global warming fossil fuel depletion crisis:
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<div><a href="http://www.seattle.gov/environment/climate_protection.htm">http://www.seattle.gov/environment/climate_protection.htm</a></div>
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<div>Areas of Impact -- How are we reducing our emissions?</div>
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<p><b>Smart Growth: </b>Reducing urban sprawl is one of the most effective climate protection strategies. The Mayor's "smart growth" strategies for Seattle's Center City and urban centers reduce global warming pollution by reducing dependence on cars and increasing energy efficiency
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<p><strong>Greenhouse gas reduction: </strong>Seattle City government has already reduced our greenhouse gas emissions by more than 60 percent by constructing green buildings and operating alternative fuel vehicles.</p>
<p><b>Transportation choices:</b> The City's work to expand transportation choices -- including light rail, buses, streetcars, and improved bike and pedestrian opportunities -- will reduce the number one source of global warming pollution in our region: motor vehicle emissions.
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<p><b>Recycling:</b> Our goal of achieving a 60% recycling rate by 2008 avoids thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions by reducing the need for materials and energy. </p>
<p><b>Sustainable forests:</b> Seattle banned commercial logging in the Cedar River Watershed and is committed to restoring 2,500 acres of urban forests by 2024. Forests absorb and store global warming pollution. </p>
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<p>One of my main objections to the previously proposed new Moscow High School that is now abandoned due to the failure of the levy, was that it's construction did not appear to emphasize alternative energy and energy conservation, though I doubt this issue had much to do with the failure of the levy.
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<p>Anyway, even if the quantity of fossil fueled powered vehicular traffic in the Moscow/Pullman area remained stable, which it won't, it would still be critical to locally reduce reliance on fossil fuels to address global warming and fossil fuel depletion.
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<div>Local cellulosic biofuel production from local agricultural products to derive fuel for local transportation might be an idea worth investigating. This is a more advanced form of biofuel production that does not have to rely on food stocks like corn. Straw and even wood chips can be processed into biofuel.
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<div>I am not sure there is enough renewable biomass, without seriously reducing food production, in range of the Moscow/Pullman area, but imagine if locally we could make our own renewable CO2 neutral fuel to power our vehicles, and say goodbye to rising gas prices because of the endless crisis in the Middle East, not to mention the eventual depletion of oil? Is it possible this is a future economically practical industry for the Moscow/Pullman area? Even if it only provides a fraction of our fuel needs?
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<div>Anyway, it appears cellulosic biofuel production is coming to Idaho with a major biofuel plant proposed for Southern Idaho via investment from Iogen:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.free-press.biz/2-2006/Cellulosic-Ethanol.html">http://www.free-press.biz/2-2006/Cellulosic-Ethanol.html</a></div>
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<div>Article quoting U of I economist below:</div>
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<div><a href="http://www.aginfo.com/reportView.cfm?recordid=1505">http://www.aginfo.com/reportView.cfm?recordid=1505</a></div>
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<td><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 15px; TEXT-ALIGN: center">05/17/04 Turning straw into ethanol</span></td>
<td align="right">By: <a href="http://www.aginfo.com/bioview.cfm?authorid=3"><font color="#000080">Bill Scott</font></a></td></tr>
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<td><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 11px; TEXT-ALIGN: center">For Monday, May 17, 2004</span></td>
<td align="right"><a href="http://www.aginfo.com/bioview.cfm?authorid=3"><font color="#000080">Click here for bio</font></a></td></tr>
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<td colspan="2"><a href="http://www.aginfo.com/audio/LOA051704BillCopy.mp3"><font color="#000080"><img alt="" hspace="10" src="http://www.aginfo.com/images/listen.gif" align="left" vspace="5" border="0"></font></a>Idahoans have used straw from harvested wheat, barley and oats for livestock feed and bedding, for rehabilitating burned public lands and other uses. Now a group of Idahoans is investigating opportunities to use natural plant sugars from straw to make ethanol fuel or polymers for packaging. University of Idaho ag economist Paul Patterson estimates that eastern Idaho produces more than one million tons of straw annually from irrigated wheat and barley. That's enough to feed an ethanol production facility. Because Idaho farmers have been harvesting, storing and transporting straw for years and years, that infrastructure is already in place.
<p>PATTERSON –"It would just probably just have to be ramped up to a higher level. Then the issue that comes up is that technology with large bales really the most efficient way for handling the straw when you starting to look at the magnitude of straw that one of these plants might utilize."
<p>Enter Duane Grant. He's the Rupert farmer who is using a 450 thousand dollar USDA matching grant to determine the most efficient way to process, store and deliver the straw to an ethanol plant.
<p>GRANT –"You try and actually harvest the straw off of 400 thousand acres. We're talking about 1.6 million bales of straw if we ultimately harvest the straw in four by four by eight-bale configuration. Is the bailer the best system for harvesting that straw or should be instead look at some kind of a loafing technology or some new kind of technology that we really haven't ever used before."
<p>Grant will start to analyze the data later this year so that he can develop a turnkey business plan for a grower co-op to work with Iogen and its partner, Shell Oil. Iogen is a privately held Canadian company that is looking to the Idaho Falls area as one of four potential sites for its second multi-million dollar ethanol production plant.
<p>HLADK –"They have a very high yield. It is basically an irrigated desert, very consistent supply, a big grain industry in the area which means stability in the future."
<p>Iogen spokesman Maurice Hladk also points to one glaring deficiency in Idaho, or anywhere in the US, and that's a lack of a national energy policy and in this election year there's a good chance 2004 will end without an energy bill being passed.
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<td colspan="2">For more information about Bill Scott, the author of this article; <a href="http://www.aginfo.com/bioview.cfm?authorid=3"><font color="#000080">Click here</font></a></td></tr></tbody></table></div>
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<div>Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett</div>
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