obama’s energy plan is comprehensive, far reaching, impressive and expensive. while i do not believe all of it can be implemented given the methods by which he intends to fund them, i feel very strongly about one of his points: investing in cellulosic ethanol.

i believe i’ve written about this and my buddy naim has thoughts on this as well. being that obama is from the corn power house of illinois, supporting cellulosic ethanol should have shivers running up and down the backs of corn farmers producing corn for the purpose of fermenting up some ethanol and collecting the governments dime. i don’t want to rehash this discussion here again, but man, if obama delivers on cellulosic ethanol, we’d be golden. here’s why:

1) its more energy efficient than corn-starch based sources of ethanol. switchgrass and corn stover are great sources of cellulose material. switchgrass even more so than corn stover, but if we keep doing what we do with corn, and go back just to farming it as a food source, we’ll have LOTS of corn stover, and we won’t be wasting land that could goto growing other foods for export to countries that desperately need it.

2) cellulosic ethanol sources (mainly switchgrass) remove more CO2 from the atmosphere than corn starch-based sources. this would also support obama’s plan to reduce CO2 emissions and reestablish (or just potentially establish) some u.s. leadership in climate change and carbon neutrality. planting a whole lot of switchgrass along major water ways and in land which is not traditionally used for harvesting food crop can decrease erosion, prevent flooding (which is a major issue in obama’s home state right now), reduce CO2 from the air, and utilize resources once thought unusable.

most importantly…

3) it shows that obama is willing to sacrifice the huge benefits of one group of people, for the benefit of all people. more amazingly is that it is just the typical democratic target: rich people and rich companies. instead it’s just farmers, sure they might be rich farmers, but in general, it’s his constituency. his own party supporters. anyway, i think obama is intelligent enough to admit that corn-starch based sources are energy inefficient, and he’s ready to tell corn farmers in his home state, and the rest of the u.s. that growing corn for the sake of collecting the government subsidy and creating ethanol is no longer the way to go. just think, a polititian, that is ready and willing and able to make a change like that. investing in corn as a feedstock, using the leftover corn stover for some cellulosic ethanol production, but taking the majority from switchgrass? potentially stopping the use of corn starch to produce ethanol? i hope he can do it. perhaps, “yes, he can”?

amazing. incredible.

to me, that’s change.

and as another aside, this article really inspired me. i hope obama can define a new era in american history. that would be awesome.