Funding center a good bet

NewsOK.com
May 31, 2008
By David Fleischaker

After funding the Oklahoma Bioenergy Center last year with $10 million, the Legislature was poised to zero out second-year funding. Sticking to his guns, Gov. Brad Henry struck a deal with the Legislature to fund the OBC at $4 million for next year. It's a good bet.

Oklahoma is poised to take the leadership in producing a crop that doesn't compete with food, and grows naturally in Oklahoma and much of the Plains states. These crops are the perennial prairie grasses, the most common is switchgrass. They are the acknowledged candidates to lead our country into the next generation of biofuels.

Biofuels and particularly the ethanol made from corn have gotten a bad rap lately. They're blamed for rising food costs, causing worldwide starvation and environmental disasters such as burning the rain forests to make room for biofuels crops. Much of what we hear is exaggeration. Rising energy costs, which increase fertilizer and transportation costs, drought that has decimated rice and wheat production worldwide, and the increase in demand for cattle feed as the 1.9 billion Chinese eat increasing amounts of meat as their standards of living improves, are more the culprits for increased food costs and worldwide starvation.

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