If You Crush It, Production Will Come

Here's a great example of how a national focus on alternative energy can help to create jobs while we turn (slowly at first) away from the black crack. The Seattle P-I reports on testimony given last week to the Washington House on alternative fuels, and focuses on businessman Tim King from Spokane, who is ready to purchase machinery to crush canola seed to create biofuel--if only Washington State ensures its commitment via legislation:

King, representing the Carbon Technology Center and the Energy Recovery Group, was one of many who testified in Olympia this week in support of several bills dealing with alternative fuels and bioenergy, including setting a 2007 deadline for requiring a minimum amounts of biodiesel and ethanol in diesel and gasoline sold in the state.
[...]
The big question for Washington farmers is, does a market exist that will make canola crops worth their while?

Farmer Read Smith says yes.

"If you create a market that will return a farmer his cost of living, cost of production, and reasonable return, they will bury you with this stuff," Smith said. "The production will come."

More than half of Smith's 8,000 acres in St. John are dedicated to crops like soft white winter wheat, barley and alfalfa. He said he could easily redirect 25 percent of that land to crops like canola.

He just wants to make sure that the state follows through on the momentum that has built up surrounding alternative fuels.
[...]
Rep. Janea Holmquist, R-Moses Lake, and sponsor of several of the bills, said she wants to ensure that all aspects of the industry are based in, and benefit, the state.

Washingtonians spend $25 million every day on fuel, "and all of those $25 million, each and every cent, are going out of the state of Washington," Holmquist said.
[...]
One of the most expensive bills is a $100 million measure that creates the "energy freedom program," which will provide loans for research and development of new and renewable energy and biofuel sources - like solar and wind power - and for development of renewable energy and biofuel facilities.