With gas prices spiking again, many of us see the prices at the pump and wish that money grew on trees.  With our agricultural expertise in Southern Missouri, we could have ourselves quite a little “cash” crop.  Sadly, there is a hitch in that plan: money does not grow on trees. 

 

On the upside, however, fuel does grow in our fields.

 

As a case study for our national energy policy, it makes sense to consider Brazil.  That nation, struggling to enter the global economy 20 years ago, decided that it would set a goal for itself of being entirely energy independent.  Today, it has achieved that goal using ethanol as the primary means of powering the automobiles on its roads. 

 

This is no small feat – Brazil’s population is 190 million, compared to nearly 300 million in the U.S.   It is also a large country with many rural areas, like ours, and it depends on agriculture to both feed the people and fuel their transportation.  Even though Brazil is home to some oil deposits, they did not look to the oil market or to refiners to solve their energy crisis.  They looked to their fields.  Brazil’s example proves just how important farms and farmers are to the independence of a nation.

 

In America, we must set a similar goal, and we must achieve it in much the same way.
Alternative, renewable fuels accomplish an energy independence that cannot be attained using oil as the basis of our fuel economy. 

 

Congress, in the short term, is responding to the recent surge in gas prices by examining our system for acquiring oil, refining it and selling it as gasoline at the pump.  The Department of Justice is investigating everyone who has anything to do with American gasoline to locate price gouging – large or small.  We are also negotiating with OPEC to stabilize the price of oil, which recently surged to all-time highs.  The cost of oil also happens to account for about 60 percent of the price of a gallon of gasoline.

 

But these measures focus on oil, and how to get more of it at a cheaper price.  And, as the old saying goes, you can have it fast, you can have it cheap, and you can have it good, but you can only have two of the three.  As we all know, oil is not cheap, nor is it getting cheaper.

 

Without a viable system to refine and transport ethanol, America will remain locked in the difficult paradigm of oil.  E85, gasoline that is 85 percent ethanol, and flex fuel vehicles are technologies that have already been developed and are on the market now.  Though it will take a little time, increasing the use of those technologies would significantly reduce our dependence on oil.  We can buy a little time by ramping up domestic oil production, exploring the oil resource in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and adding Outer Continental Shelf drilling to our energy arsenal.  But we must wisely use that time to create the industry and build the infrastructure to bring a reliable, affordable source of fuel to the U.S. market.

 

Ethanol is primarily produced from corn, but there are endless potential sources of the fuel.  Brazil supplements its domestic ethanol supplies with harvested sugarcane.  Americans have found efficient ways to convert switchgrass and agricultural leftovers to “cellulosic” ethanol.

 

We must make the same complex commitment made by Brazil years ago.  We must achieve energy independence and use the natural and renewable resources of our nation to advance an energy policy to end the rollercoaster of prices at the pump.  Being fed up with high gas prices is not enough to change them if we continue to swallow the slick, black spoonful of oil from overseas.  We must take a cue from South America and be like Brazil.