Supreme Argument on Warming

Today a coalition of states, cities environmental groups and other activist groups filed legal briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court on what may be one of the court’s biggest decisions ever concerning the environment: Does the EPA have the power and the duty to regulate carbon dioxide to combat global warming?

A dozen states say yes. Another 10 states side with the EPA in saying no. Not involved on either side on the case: Florida.

“Florida would rather aggressively promote environmental improvement in its air quality by advancing technology, improving regulatory efficiency and creating a more cooperative climate of partnership with industry,’’ Florida Department of Environmental Protection spokesman Anthony DeLuise explained in an e-mail Wednesday.

The states on the plaintiff side of the case argue that the EPA must limit carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles under the federal Clean Air Act, because -- as the primary greenhouse gas causing a warming of the earth --- carbon dioxide is a pollutant. The petitioners cited Section 202 of the act, which states that the federal government is to regulate “any air pollutant” that can “reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

But the Bush Administration maintains that carbon dioxide, unlike other chemicals that must be controlled to assure healthy air, is not a pollutant. The EPA questioned whether the link between greenhouse gases and global warming is certain enough to justify regulation. And the agency asserted that it has discretion over whether to regulate carbon dioxide or instead work for voluntary reductions.

A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court sided with the administration, but it was a sharply divided ruling. The plaintiffs appealed, and in May the high court agreed to hear the case.

The case is Massachusetts vs. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120, and oral arguments are expected to be scheduled sometime this winter. In addition to Massachusetts, the states involved are California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. They were joined by a number of cities including Baltimore, New York City and Washington D.C., the Pacific island of America Samoa, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth. Filing friend of the court briefs on the plaintiff side were with the petitioners include: 6 additional states – Arizona, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Delaware – along four former EPA administrators, various climate scientists and Alaska tribal groups.

On the EPA’s side is the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, Utility Air Regulatory Group, National Automobile Dealers Association, and 10 states: Michigan, Texas, Indiana, Utah, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and Ohio.

California takes the lead

California leaders have reached agreement on a bill to limit the state’s global warming emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and institute a mandatory emissions reporting system to monitor compliance.

The bill, AB 32, would also would allow for market mechanisms to provide incentives to businesses to reduce emissions while safeguarding local communities.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger called it "a historic agreement on legislation to combat global warming." He predicted the bill would be "an example for other states and nation to follow as the fight against climate change continues."

While AB 32 must still be approved in both houses of the California Legislature and signed by Schwarzenegger, it has sufficient Assembly cosponsors (42) to assure passage.  Environmental activists have worked along side the Assembly authors, Speaker Fabián Núñez, D-Los Angeles, and Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, to write and pass the legislation.

"Today California's leaders showed that global warming is so important that addressing it rises above personal differences, partisan politics and special interests," said Tom Graff, California regional director of Environmental Defense.  "California is filling a void created by inaction and gridlock in Washington. Its bipartisan elected leaders struck a historic deal that will jump-start America's fight against global warming."

Florida: on the threshold of biofuels?

So, here we are at the Farm to Fuel summit in Orlando. This is maybe where Florida finds out if it
has a future in alternative energy. It needs one, and, on paper at least, the state has plenty of
potential. No state has more bisomass than Florida ready to be exploited for biofuel production,
according to one recent study.

That's certainly what our host, Agriculture Commisioner Charles Bronson, believes. We'll have to
wait and see what political will there is to turn his vision into reality. In contrast to Governor Jeb Bush, who favors the importation of cheap Brazilian ethanol, the Agriculture Commissioner believes Florida can produce its own domestic sources.

Judging by the turn out at Farm to Fuel, he would appear to have a good number of fellow believers. How committed are they, The Fueling Station wonders? When we checked in Wednesday at the Omni Orlando Resort a "flex fuel" E85  ethanol Chevrolet Tahoe from GM's livegreengoyellow campaign was parked in the lobby. Good sign! But as The Fueling Station unloaded our bags we were surprised to see a fellow summit attendee in a white Hummer H3 pull up next to the Tahoe.

Please let us know if we are being unfair. But The Fueling Station can't help questioning the
political correctness of driving this gas guzzling mode of transport to a theoretically
energy-conscious summit. Don't get us wrong. The Fueling Station is familiar with the awesome
motoring capabilities of the Hummer. We drove one down to Key West during hurricane season last
year and were impressed by its light handling. There's probably no safer vehicle to be driving in a
big storm. However, the 10 mpg we got over 45 mph was not so inspiring.

Back to the summit.

This is quite an eclectic bunch - from politicians and businessmen, to 'mad scientists' - as well
as a former 'adult entertainment' entrepreneur turned environmentalist. That's perhaps
the most positive sign so far. When the porn industry turns to biofuels, you have to figure that
alternative energy has a bright future.

On a more high moral ground, one of the state's leading alternative energy advocates, state senator
Lee Constantine, told The Fueling Station that biofuels were important to preserving "the idea of
Florida," which he defined as being a balance between tourism and growth, with an emphasis on
protecting the environment.

The summit was a good indication of how biofuels were catching on in Florida, he said. "It's a
recognition that there are alternatives to fossil fuels," he said. "We have to generate that idea."
The summit has attracted a number of out of state visitors, including Alabama Agriculture and
Industries Commissioner, Ron Sparks. Despite being a Democrat, Sparks commended Bronson on showing "vision" in his embrace of bio-fuels.

"We are on the threshold, and we have to decide if we are going to step through it," Sparks said. "I'm a firm believer that every gallon of biofuels we produce in America is one less gallon that we bring out of the desert." Sparks noted that biofuels are beginning to take off in his state, including the shrimp boat fishing industry on the Gulf Coast which now use biodiesel.

In Florida, there are more people signing on to biofuels every day. The state's first ethanol plant
is due to break ground in Tampa next week, and the first E85 gas station is due to open in
Tallahassee on September 12. Another ethanol plant is is the permitting stages in Jacksonville.

These are all important first steps, but Florida still has a long way to go to confirm its arrival
on the alternative energy scene.

Ozone recovering?

Concentrations of atmospheric ozone -- which protects Earth from the sun's ultraviolet radiation -- are showing signs of recovery in the most important regions of the stratosphere above the mid-latitudes in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres, according to a new study announced today by the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Researchers attribute the improvement to both a reduction in ozone-depleting chemicals phased out by the global Montreal Protocol treaty and its amendments and to changes in atmospheric transport dynamics. The study, funded by NASA, is the first to document a difference among stratospheric regions in ozone-level improvement and to establish a cause-and-effect relationship based on direct measurements by multiple satellite and ground-based, ozone-monitoring systems.

"We do think we're on the road to recovery of stratospheric ozone, but what we don't know is exactly how that recovery will happen," said Derek Cunnold, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at GIT, said in a news release about the study. "Many in the scientific community think it will be at least 50 years before ozone levels return to the pre-1980 levels when ozone began to decline."

The Montreal Protocol phased out the use of ozone-depleting chemicals, including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) emitted from such sources as spray-can propellants, refrigerator coolants and foam insulation.

For the study, the researchers analyzed a tremendous amount of data from three extremely accurate NASA satellite's instruments that began collecting data in 1979 and continued until 2005, with the exception of a three-year period in the early 1980s. Ground-based ozone measurements taken by NASA and NOAA from 1979 to 2005 and balloons provided essential complementary data for the study. The satellites and the balloons measured ozone levels by atmospheric region. The ground-based data recorded measurements for the total ozone column.

The research results will be published Sept. 9 in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research -- Atmospheres.

Farm to Fuel

In an unprecedented move to boost the market for Florida's bio-fuel crops, the state is hosting a two-day Farm to Fuel Summit which opens Wednesday in Orlando.

Undeterred by tropical storm Ernesto, the organizers confirmed to The Fueling Station last night
that the summit will go ahead as planned. "It's going to be rainy and messy, but I think most people can get there," said the summit's host, Florida Agriculture and Consumer Services Commissioner Charles H. Bronson.

The Fueling Station will also be there to offer regular updates on key presentations, interviews with some of the participants, and links to online sources of information.

In an interview with The Fueling Station, Bronson said he hopes the meeting will help get state farmers and ranchers involved in reducing the nation’s dependency on foreign oil. The summit will bring together private businessmen and farmers, as well as international experts and Bush administration officials.

Bronson believes that Florida can be a leader in the effort of producing energy from crops and
biomass because of the vast amount of farm acreage in the state and its mild climate, which permits crops to be grown virtually year round.

"We want to let everyone know we are the largest biomass state in the nation. We have everything it takes: land, water and sun," he said.

The goal of the nation’s agriculture industry is to produce 25 percent of the energy consumed in
the U.S. by the year 2025 - a program known as '25/25.' "Actually I think we can do it sooner than that," Bronson says.

The program will focus on reducing vehicle emissions and strengthen U.S. energy security by using fuels produced from American crops, including ethanol and bio-diesel. The summit will hear from US corn-based ethanol producers, and Brazil's ethanol industry which uses sugarcane, as well as the pioneers of Florida nascent ethanol industry.

"We are going to be talking about every conceivable way of making ethanol," Bronson said. "We want people to know there's more than one way of doing this."

The state recently altered the law to allow the sale of alternative fuels, including alcohol-blended ethanol and bio-diesel. Although there are currently no retails outlets open to the general public, officials expect that to change in the near future. Some state and county vehicle fleets are already using bio-fuels. The state's first ethanol plants are being built by US EnviroFuels, and are due to begin operations next year in Tampa.

"This conference means that the market is now open for business," said James Culp, Energy Programs Manager at the Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) in Titusville, a state body that promotes cutting-edge technology. "It shows a high level of commitment by the state."

Click here for the summit agenda and background information on different topics.

Reducing your carbon footprint

A pair of online travel services announced Tuesday that they are now offering customers concerned with global warming a way to offset their "carbon footprint" they create while zooming around the world.

Travelocity announced a program, called Go Zero, that's supposed to allow customers to "zero out" the carbon dioxide emissions generated by their flight, hotel stay or car usage. The program makes a donation to The Conservation Fund, which plants trees that absorb carbon dioxide.

Travelocity has also purchased carbon offsets for its own corporate travel with a donation to the Go Zero program. The first grove of Travelocity trees will be planted in the Bogue Chitto National Wildlife Refuge, north of New Orleans.

Meanwhile Expedia travelers can now pay a small fee to sponsor a measured, verified reduction in greenhouse gas emissions directly proportional to the emissions created by their plane flight. Expedia gives the money to an organization called TerraPass, which funds domestic clean energy projects, such as wind farms, innovative "cow power" methane capture plants on American dairies, and the retirement of carbon offsets on the Chicago Climate Exchange.

Airline travel currently accounts for about 13 percent of U.S.-transportation-based emissions of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas responsible for global warming.

According to Expedia, a typical flight from New York to Los Angeles creates about 2,000 lbs. per passenger of CO2. For $5.99, Expedia says it can offset about 1,000 lbs of CO2, the approximate amount per passenger emitted by a 2,200 mile round-trip flight. An Expedia TerraPass to cover cross-country and international flights is $16.99 for up to 6,500 flight miles, and $29.99 for up to 13,000 flight miles.

And to prove you are helping the planet, travelers who purchase a TerraPass will receive a luggage tag or a decal.

When The Fueling Station inquired how two on-line retailers could unveil similar programs on the same day -- both of them claiming to be the first -- Expedia spokeswoman Natalia Wodecki replied: "While Expedia and Travelocity are actually two different, competing offerings, we consider Travelocity and The Conservation Fund as well-intentioned partners in the fight against climate change."

Chrysler chief executive says high gas prices are here to stay.

Chrysler's chief executive, Thomas LaSorda, has told reporters his company expects gasoline prices to remain at $3 to $4 a gallon for the rest of this decade.

His comments are extensively reported in today's New York Times business section. click here for complete story

LaSorda's comments are "the first time a Detroit automaker has issued a specific forecast on gas prices since they began climbing to $3 a gallon and higher," writes New York Times reporter Micheline Maynard.

The article also includes comment from Ford's chief sales analyst, George Pipas, confirming that his company also sees prices remaining high.

"Together, the comments signal a recognition that the two automakers may have to fundamentally change their product mix to put more emphasis on fuel-efficient vehicles — a move General Motors says it already is making," the paper reports.

The Fueling Station predicts that US automakers will have trouble adapting to this new reality as they have placed so much emphasis on production of gas-guzzling SUVs. Unlike European and Japanese manufacturers who have long offered consumers smaller, efficient vehicles, the US companies will now have to revamp their strategic thinking. In the long run this will be good for consumers and the environment. Maybe the car companies too. Ironically, US auto-makers were among the earliest to develop flex-fuel technology which has become all the rage in Brazil. But only recently have US automakers begun to promote this technology in their own vehicles. (click here to read St Petersburg Times article on Brazil flex-fuel car revolution).

Expect to see a major push to acclerate production of hybrid and E85 'ethanol-ready' vehicles. Ford has already been promising to ramp up its production of these new  E85 engine cars which can run on gasoline blended with cheaper, cleaner-burning ethanol.

Wind power comes to Florida?

The Miami Herald reports that FPL Energy, a sister company of Florida Power & Light is considering building its first wind energy facility in the state – two to five turbines designed for low winds, along either of the state’s coasts, according to company spokeswoman Rachel Scott, quoted in Sunday’s Herald story.

FPL is the country's largest generator of wind power, with 44 wind farms in 15 states -- but has yet to build one in its home state. Company officials have said for years that Florida lacks have the strong, steady winds needed to consistently produce power. Now they are rethinking that position.

Wind energy was the second-largest source of new power generation in the country in 2005 (after natural gas), and U.S. wind energy installations now exceed 10,000 megawatts in generating capacity, according to the American Wind Energy Association. The nation’s windmills produce enough electricity on a typical day to power the equivalent of more than 2.5-million homes.

The first commercial wind farms were constructed in California in the early 1980s, and after reaching 1,000 MW in 1985, it took more than a decade for wind to reach the 2,000-MW mark, in 1999. Since then, however, installed capacity has grown fivefold. Today, the industry is installing more wind power in a single year (3,000 MW expected in 2006) than the amount operating in the entire country in 2000 (2,500 MW).

For the full Herald story, click on this link:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/15364380.htm

And for more information from FPL's own website, click here:

http://www.fplenergy.com/renewable/contents/wind.shtml

Mixed feelings on Ernesto

Such is the nature of our dependence on oil that it's hard to know how to feel about the latest economic news on tropical storm Ernesto. Oil prices fell (hooray!!) on Monday after Ernesto's strength was downgraded and forecasts suggested it will miss oil facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. On a less happy note for those of us who live in South Florida, Ernesto is now predicted to hit us instead (not again!!). It's hard not to feel just a little put out by the market reaction to our bad luck!

A barrel of light, sweet crude tumbled 1.90 dollars to 70.61 dollars on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Meanwhile, gasoline futures fell by 11 cents to 1.78 dollars a gallon and natural gas declined by 68 cents to 6.47 dollars per 1,000 cubic feet.

On the other hand, if South Florida is actually hit by a hurricane you can bet your bottom dollar that gas prices will in fact rise in the affected region. Of course that assumes there is any gas left at stations which were overrun with panic buyers in Miami today.

Maybe this will serve as yet another reminder that Florida needs to do something to diversify its energy supply. The Fueling Station spent Monday at the Florida Solar Energy Center in Titusville, the nation's largest solar energy research facility. (more on our visit coming soon) The Center's director, James Fenton,put the case for solar power very simply. "When a hurricane comes you don't lose power."
While the US is slowly waking up to the virtues of solar power, Fenton says it will take "more pain" before its full potential is realized.

Florida Energy Innovators

As promised, The Fueling Station begins today a series of reports focusing on some of Florida's own home-grown energy solutions. They are drawn from different energy fields, and vary greatly in size from big to small. But they share one thing in common: all are the product of enterprise and ingenuity, as well as a good deal of financial courage and sacrifice.

Florida currently lags behind the rest of the country in the quest for alternative energy sources, producing only three percent of the energy we consume. But that is beginning to change. These are some of the persons responsible for helping us catch up. The Fueling Station takes its hat off to them.

We would like to thank the Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA) in Titusville, for assisting us in the search for Florida energy solutions. Please don't hesistate to let us know of any other worthy ideas we may have overlooked.

We begin our Florida Energy Innovators series with Dr Jose Sifontes in Gainesville and his waste transformation bioreactor system ............ 

Dr Jose Sifontes

Dr Jose Sifontes is arguably Florida's highest qualified biomass energy expert. Ironcially, he began his professional life as a petroleum engineer with Mobil. Sifontes, 57, holds no less than nine  degrees, including a Phd in agricultural and biological engineering. To round things out he also holds a degree in theology.

He has spent the last few years developing his own patented bioreactor system to transfer solid and liquid waste into commercially viable quantities of gas and other byproducts.

He used his own money to develop a small commercial plant, located at the Alachua County Waste Transfer Station outside Gainesville. When he ran out of money, the TRDA was so impressed by  what he had already achieved that they gave him the financial assistance to allow him to complete a successful pilot project.

Sifontes says he can take solid municipal waste, or horse manure, and convert it into energy-producing biomass in a matter of three weeks - a procss which would normally take hundreds or thousands of years if buried underground in landfills.

Sifontes' design uses a bacterial solution to decompose the waste material in three bioreactor tanks heated to 135 degrees. The gas produced by the reactor is clean burning and virtually odorless. The Fueling Station can vouch for this as we recently observed a demonstration at Sifontes' plant. It can also be compressed into cylinders. Sifontes runs a pick-up truck on two cylinders of gas with the energy equivalent of 15 gallons of gasoline.

As a byproduct he produces a compost which has proven in tests to be more effective, and cheaper, than the costly peat moss the U.S. imports from Canada. Leftover liquid from the process can also be used as a 'soil tonic,' or 'compost tea,' which can be sprayed on plants to enhance growth and also acting as a 'bio-film' to protect against insects.

Sifontes believes his system could fuel entire communities, especially in Ocala horse country, which produces 5,000 cubic yards of manure a day. Horse farms currently dump the unwanted manure in sink holes.

So far no-one has taken him up on his idea. Though Alachua waste treatment officials have shown considerable interest in his design, the county is locked into a contract through 2018 to ship its waste to a landfill in Union County.

Meanwhile, Gainesville is looking to increase its energy supply with a $600 million investment in a 'clean coal' plant. "I could produce that energy at no cost," Sifontes says.

He is currently talking to one city near Ocala about installing his system, as well as the developers of a large, new housing project near Orlando.

Officials at the Technological Research and Development Authority (TRDA), believe the Sifontes bioreactor has great commercial potential. "Over time, the environmentally-friendly device pays for itself because it transforms existing waste into fuel sources that would otherwise need to be purchased," it stated in its latest TechReach report.

Here are five reasons why The Fueling Station believes Dr Jose Cifontes deserves to be considered a
Florida Energy Innovator:

1./ his bioreactor disposes of unwanted yard and municipal waste as well as horse muck in an environmentally friendly and energy-useful way
2./  the process is highly sustainable and uses only about 10 per cent of the energy it produces
3./ it creates a renewable source of energy in the process
4./ it produces organic byproducts for agricultural use
5./ it reduces CO2 released into the atmosphere due to peat mining

Oil, gas prices rise on storm fears

The Associated Press reports this morning that a "relatively weak" storm hundreds of miles south of Puerto Rico is sending oil and natural-gas prices higher on fears that it could strengthen and threaten Gulf of Mexico oil production by next week.

World energy markets are already focused on Iran's stand-off with the West over its nuclear program. Oil prices actually fell earlier this week after U.S. Department of Energy weekly data showed a rise in gasoline stockpiles.

Tropical Storm Ernesto formed Friday over the Caribbean as it moved toward Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, and it could develop next week into the first hurricane of the 2006 Atlantic season.

Oil traders are concerned about the possibility of Iran, the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, blocking oil exports if it's sanctioned by the United Nations over its nuclear program. The U.N. set an Aug. 31 deadline for Iran to halt its nuclear program but Tehran said Tuesday that it wants to negotiate further.

Whoops! There goes our oil.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez hasn't wasted any time confirming the fears of Florida Governor

Jeb Bush, who warned The Fueling Station yesterday that the US should move away from reliance on oil from that country (see story in St Petersburg Times)

Chavez's latest move: securing a major energy deal during a state visit to China. (click here for BBC report) Chavez is promising to provide China, his number two customer for oil after the US, with one million barrels of oil per day by 2012.

Chavez has been vowing for some time to reduce Venezuela's reliance on the US market in order to strike a blow at the heart of American 'imperialism.' For a long time his so-called oil diplomacy
was taken as little more than idle rhetoric.

Analysts said he couldn't do it. China was too far away and it made much more economic sense to keep shipping to the US. Also, China didn't have the refineries capable of handling Venezuela's heavy sulphur crude.

Well, guess what, the often underestimated leftist heir apparent to Fidel Castro, looks set to
prove everyone wrong.

Venezuela currently exports only 155,000 barrels per day to China, only a tenth of the more than
one million barrels a day it sends to refineries in the US. (click here for latest US petroleum imports figures) But Chavez says Venezuelan shipments to China will hit 300,000 barrels per day by 2007, and 500,000 by 2009.

Despite the extra cost of travelling half way around the globe, nothing is too much for Chavez if
it hurts the US. With oil prices more than $70 per barrel, Venezuela can afford to eat the estimated $3 per barrel in extra transportation cost. Venezuela is also purchasing some new Chinese oil tankers to make the trips, as well as Chinese-made drilling rigs, according to the Wall St Journal. The two countries have announced a joint deal to build a new refinery in Venezuela.

The US relies on Venezuela for 12 per cent of its oil imports. The loss of Venezuelan shipments
will likely not cause shortages in the US, the experts say. Supplies can be made up elsewhere. But it may end up costing US consumers more.

As Jeb Bush said yesterday, the sooner the US can diversify its fuel supply by switching from a
petroleum economy to bio-fuels, and other alternatives, the better.

AP photo: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, left, and Chinese President Hu Jintao raise their glasses during a signing ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006. Chavez is on a five-day visit to China. (Click to enlarge)

Gassed up and ready to go

Welcome all!

Whether you are a tree-hugging liberal worried about global warming or an energy security conservative with geo-political concerns, we hope you can find a non-partisan home here at The Fueling Station.

This blog owes its origin to Wilma and Katrina, two hurricanes that helped wake up a lot of us folk in Florida to issues that had for too long been on the fringes of national debate. The jury may still be out on whether global warming and the intensity of hurricane season are inter-related. But one thing is for sure: energy diversity is more crucial than ever to our economy and our environment.

The only question now is which alternative sources of energy we should opt for, both for power generation and transportation fuel.

The Fueling Station plans to keep an open mind. Over the coming days, weeks and months, we will feature as many of these options as we are able, from the smallest private enterpreneur to major corporate ventures.

Our focus will be on Florida but we will be looking for stories to bring you from all the country, and overseas. Florida is way behind the rest of the US in developing alternative sources of energy. We have a lot of catching up to do. But the good news is that there's much more happening here than most people realize. That's in large part due to the mainstream media which has overlooked this subject for too long. We at The Fueling Station hope to turn that around.

In the coming days we will introduce you to, among others; a chemical engineer in Gainesville who patented his own gas-generating anaerobic digester, the creators of Florida's own hydrogen fuel cell in Pompano which runs on supermarket shelf ammonia, a team of biotechnicians in Jupiter who believe a fungus from far eastern Russia could bring down the price of ethanol. Then there's also a company in Orlando that builds lawnmowers that run on biodiesel. We'll also visit the state's only ethanol gas station at the Kennedy Space Center and introduce you to the Florida Solar Energy Center in Cocoa.

At the end of the month we plan to be in Orlando to bring you coverage of the Farm to Fuel Summit, organized by the Florida Department of Agriculture  Summit registration and agenda

We hope you'll come along for the ride. We're not sure where it will take us, but that's the beauty of it. Hopefully we can be of some public service along the way.

Now please sample our first blog post. A revealing interview with Florida Governor Jeb Bush and his thoughts on the 'ethanol exuberance' sweeping America.

Jeb's ethanol 'exuberance'

The Fueling Station is grateful to Florida Governor Jeb Bush for agreeing to an interview in his office with which we are launching this blog. A full story can be found in the St. Petersburg Times today.

The Fueling Station also offers a full transcript of the interview.

Here are some of the highlights:

* In the four months he has left as Governor Bush wants to make ethanol part of his political legacy.

* The US should make Brazil an energy ally, he says. As a matter of national security the US needs to take the oil card out of the hands of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. Bush’s bottom line is that Chavez can’t be trusted to keep selling us his oil, which accounts for 11-13 per cent of US petroleum imports. Not only that, why should US consumers be the ones fuelling his populist revolution when we could buy ethanol from friendly neighbors like Brazil.

* Lift the 54 cents a gallon tariff on Brazilian ethanol. This is a politically volatile position that Bushy first declared back in April. In his interview the Governor gives the most detailed explanation so far of his ‘ethanol initiative.’

* President Bush apparently likes the idea. Jeb has written him a letter on the tariff issue. The subject has also come up twice in meetings between president Bush and Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “There's a strong personal tie between Lula and George,” says Jeb.

* Bush says Brazil’s sugarcane-based ethanol is a better product than US ethanol produced from corn. Midwestern corn growers may not like it, but America needs it, he argues. Rising oil prices, a lack of US refining capacity and political insecurity has made the US too vulnerable to global energy shocks. “That to me is a heck of a lot more important than whether or not the corn guy in Des Moines is protected so that we continue to consume foreign sources of oil,” he says.

* Bush also goes behind the Brazilian ethanol issue to explain how he caught the ethanol bug. He describes a “eureka” moment when he read a position paper on ethanol prepared by the Florida FTAA in Miami. He says it was a “convergence of thinking,” that brought together the aftermath of 2005 hurricane season, frustration over the stalled free trade debate, as well as concern about Global Warming.