Let's see how they do on Karen ("Were you wearing pants, Mr. President, when you received oral sex?") Immergut for federal district judge.

I sure hope Randy Leonard has a plan for the 80 million pounds of canola mash they are shipping to Portland, like his plan for spray paint.

I'm sure the brothers in Rickreal who just purchased an old grain silo with a rail spur so they could develop a biodiesel plant are excited about government subsidized competition. I hope they got some sort of bone thrown their way for being out front on something the government clearly values, but I'm not holding my breath.

That's not a biodiesel plant in development in Rickreall. It's an oilseed crushing plant. The plan is to send the oil it produces to a refinery in Salem. And, oh, yeah, it got a million dollar low-interest loan from the state.

Hmm, about 16 pounds of waste for every gallon of fuel . . . 20 gallon fuel tank . . . . that means that each tank of fuel releases 320 lb of waste and takes a little over a quarter acre to grow.

Rapeseed (canola) production is around 1,500 lb per acre so how much wheat land will change production to grow 5 million gallons of fuel? My estimate is about 67,000 acres which is about 9% of Oregon's wheat acreage.

Jack -- you can thank the bio-Diesel drivers when the price of your Malt-o-Meal goes up next year. Also your favorite beer.

That's still better than bio-gasoline, though. That takes about 45 pounds of corn for every 10% ethanol tank of gas. (450 pounds for a full tank of pure ethanol.) Which of course, skyrockets the price of tortillas and masa. Does switching to bio fuels aggravate the hunger of poor people in Mexico and further motivate them to flee to the US?

Leigh M
Portland

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/08/12/news/state/56-usda.txt

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canola_oil
http://www.ext.colostate.edu/pubs/crops/00110.html
http://preview.tinyurl.com/yrut2q
http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/procrop/crn/cornus03.htm