The following is the fifth in a seven-part series on American energy security by U.S. Representative Jo Ann Emerson.

“Southern Missouri is well-positioned to provide the antidote to high and unstable petroleum gas prices set by sultans and emirs:  We are an agricultural leader, not just in productivity, but also in the innovations and science behind agricultural production and management.

For these reasons, the opportunity to turn ag products into fuels has particular appeal.  We have the steady production, we have the know-how and expertise, and we are always looking for value-added opportunities.  There’s no better service to our economy, our families, and our foreign policy than to reduce dependence on foreign oil.

Corn gets first billing when we talk about ethanol, but there are other promising feedstocks: corn stover, rice straw, small diameter trees, switchgrass, soybeans for biofuels, really any organic material can be modified by enzymes into fuel.  It’s just a matter of finding the most efficient, most abundant feedstock to make the energy product.

So corn is the starting point, and a groundbreaking fuel source, because we have to get the American marketplace ready to accept alternative fuels.  We have to get chain gas stations to offer E-85 pumps and we have to have cars and trucks to run on E-85 from American manufacturers.  We have to be certain that consumers bring a “Made in the USA” mentality to the pump with them.  

By my best guess, Missouri has more than 210,000 alternative fuel vehicles on the road today, and the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition says there 80 E-85 fueling stations in our state.  We must do more.

 
We have to gain the cooperation of gasoline retailers and automobile manufacturers to put more alternative fuel vehicles on the road, along with more E-85 pumps to fill up with ethanol rather than 90 or 100 percent oil-based petroleum.

Finally, we have to be sure that our universities continue to push this technology forward, making it more efficient and creating stronger and stronger links between new fuel technologies and market production of alternative fuels.  There is a resistance to corn as an ethanol source, but you realize that resistance is short-sighted as soon as you take a tour of one of our university labs and actually see the efficiencies in the technology being invented.  We have to stay ahead of the game, and our universities are going to be key to this sustained effort to emphasize ag-based alternative fuels over petroleum manufactured from foreign oil.  

Over the next 50 years, it is critically important that our place in the world as a leading force for democracy, stability, innovation, market economics and peace is secure.  It’s also critical that we continue to guarantee these things for ourselves and our posterity.  

In order to be an honest broker in this world, America has to be free from conflicts, disputes, and desperate struggles over energy resources.  These struggles are clearly coming. Other countries are striving to become energy independent as soon as possible, because they can see today that energy will be the global currency of tomorrow.  

Energy security for America is not a choice, it is necessary to maintain our independence and our competitiveness.

I am working in Congress to improve national policies that spur the development and innovation of alternative fuels.  In the end, however, action on the local level at universities, in communities, and on farms is going to make or break our quest for energy security.”

Next week: The Future of Fuels: Energy technologies being used and developed today.