excerpt from HEMP: Lifeline to the Future

reprinted by permission of Chris Conrad

ENERGY INDEPENDENCE & SECURITY

Few things have as much impact on our daily lives as the choice of energy. No part of the economy can function without affordable energy. Energy affects the price of production and, therefore, the cost of everything produced: i.e., everything we buy.

The global society is addicted to petroleum, with disastrous health and financial consequences. It affects the quality of our air, of our water and of our lives. The federal Environmental Protection Agency estimated that up to one-half of all toxic-related cancer deaths are caused by auto emissions and are responsible for almost all carbon monoxide emmissions.1

Department of Energy estimates suggest that renewable energy plus conservation could produce a return on investment of almost $100 for every dollar spent, through avoided oil imports and environmental damage.2 Ideally, we want an energy resource that is abundant and efficient, wherein the source, money and jobs all stay in the nation and region in which it is produced and consumed. It should maintain low transportation costs and a minimum of damage to the environment. Society needs to find a sustainable resource to provide adequate liquid, solid and electrical energy.

A number of options under study have the potential of co-existing for the benefit of all. Resources like wind, sunlight, tidal and geothermal have regional applicability. However, they are unequally distributed and need more development, along with specialized, costly equipment. Cogeneration captures otherwise wasted energy to produce power and increase efficiency, but does not provide the initial fuel. Hydroelectric sources in America are already developed nearly to capacity. The human species must evolve beyond the automobile and adapt better systems of public and private transit and energy, perhaps powered by photovoltaics, hydrogen or some other clean energy system. We can return to the clean and efficient energy systems of the past to revive small scale windmill and hydro power technologies and add them to our inventory of energy resources.

In the meantime, millions of internal combustion vehicles and burn generators are still in the world and will continue to be used for some time. Luckily there is another option available to ease the transition. A University of Hawaii study found that biomass gasification could meet 90 percent of that states energy needs.3 Biomass is the term used to describe all biologically produced matter. Having the lowest cost-per-energy ratio and widest adaptability to existing technology, biomass methanol offers an immediate transitional energy source to put America back on its feet and give us energy independence. But methanol is just one part of the total energy we can produce here at home, thanks to advances in technology. Biomass can be converted into virtually every form of energy Americans use. No drilling or strip mining, and the best part is that the plants do almost all the work. Hemp actually adds oxygen to the atmosphere. Using water and minerals, photosynthesis transforms CO2 into O2 and carbohydrates that power plant growth. Fermentation transforms plant sugars into alcohol.

The hemp plant offers everyone who has access to a piece of land the opportunity of "growing oil wells," with an output equivalent to around 1000 gallons of methanol per acre year.4 As such, hemp becomes an energy resource, but one of infinitely greater value and sustainability than fossil fuels.

                            Pyrolysis: From Plants to All Forms of Energy

World production of biomass is estimated at 146 billion metric tons a year, mostly wild plant growth. Some farm crops and trees can produce up to 20 metric tons of biomass per acre year, while some algaes and grasses may produce 50 metric tons per year. This biomass has a heating value of 5000-8000 BTU per pound5, with virtually no atmospheric ash or sulfur produced during combustion. About six percent of contiguous United States land area farmed for biomass could supply all current demands for oil and gas, without adding any net carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.6

The thermochemical process that converts organic materials into usable fuels is called pyrolysis. This consists of applying high heat to organic matter, in the absence of air or in reduced air. This can produce charcoal, non-condensable organic liquids known as pyrolytic fuel oil. Pyrolysis can take two pathways to produce energy fuels with high fuel-to-feed ratios. It is the most efficient method of biomass conversion, capable of competing with, and eventually replacing, non-renewable fossil fuel resources while being refined using the same technology.

Biomass expert Lynn Osburn explained that "The process can be adjusted to favor charcoal, pyrolytic oil, gas or methanol production with a 95.5 percent fuel-to-feed efficiency." This process has been used since the dawn of civilization. If the off-gasses (collectively called smoke) are collected, the process is called wood distillation. The ancient Egyptians used wood distillation for embalming. Pyrolysis of wood for charcoal was a major industry in the 1800's, fueling the industrial revolution, until it was replaced by coal. Wood distillation was still profitable into the early 20th century for producing soluble tar, pitch, creosote oil, chemicals, and non-condensable gasses.7 Pyrolysis can even produce gasoline, or provide fuel for electrical generation. Compressed biomass or pyrolytic off-gasses are then burned in boilers to produce steam, which turns turbines that generate electricity. In the mid-20th century, Henry Ford operated a biomass pyrolytic plant at Iron Mountain, Michigan.8

The modern process uses a pyrolytic reactor as a gasifier, adding air or oxygen to more completely burn the biomass to ash and release all the energy in the form of gasses. After purification, the syngas9 is altered by catalysts under high pressure and heat to produce 100 gallons of methanol per ton of feed material.10

Biomass conversion has proven economically feasible both in laboratory tests and by continuous operation of pilot plants in field tests since 1973.11 Emphasis has centered around using waste products: agricultural residues, forestry wastes of the timber and pulp industry, and municipal wastes. All of these combined cannot produce enough fuel to meet the needs of industry and the automobile, until we include the hemp that can be grown on farms around the world.

For the farmer to compete in the energy market, his crop must be woody in nature and high in lignocellulose. It must grow in all American climactic zones, but not compete with food crops for the most productive land. Preferably, it should be grown in rotation with food crops or on marginal land where food production is unprofitable. One plant that meets all these requirements for an energy crop is hemp. In this context, it is apparent that biomass crops like hemp are the most appropriate source of energy, overall, on the planet. The major obstacle to its development has been interference by government bureaucrats.12

The Implications of Hemp Power

Biomass can meet most of our liquid, solid, gas and electrical energy demand through a decentralized domestic industry in which the fuel, money and jobs all stay right here at home. It will spread its financial benefits throughout greater society and promote our economic independence. Everyone benefits from using a superior energy source processed using existing technology.

Hemp biomass is a sustainable, annual farm crop that is free of sulfur and other contaminants, and therefore burns relatively cleanly. Hemp is the single most productive, practical and profitable biomass farm crop on Earth: 10 tons or more of raw product per acre in temperate climates over approximately four months.13 And this kind of hemp does not produce any smokable "marijuana."14 Every year, throughout the growing season, hemp produces enough oxygen to balance all the CO2 it will later put into the atmosphere if burned as an energy source. A cleaner environment means fewer health problems, which benefits the insurance and health care industries, as well as the individual and society as a whole.

When all the peripheral costs are factored in, the cost of petroleum in 1990 was about $89 per barrel. In spite of massive taxpayer subsidies, military protection and exemption from paying for the environmental damage that mining, drilling and petrochemicals cause, the United States Department of the Interior in May, 1991 projected that crude oil costs will average $40 per barrel by the year 2000.

Hemp will not need massive subsidies or cleanup money from taxpayers. Small, mid-size and large-scale farmers, truckers, commodities brokers, distributors, etc., can all share in the profits, along with the energy companies and utilities.15 Using current crop statistics and technologies, this is equivalent to the mid-$30 per barrel range. By developing hemp, a practical energy crop for America's climate, we can potentially lower that price to compete with fossil fuel at under $30 per barrel and then bypass it, as petroleum becomes more expensive and technological and yield improvements continue to lower the real cost of using hemp.16

We can accomplish a long-term strategic goal of every American President since Nixon's oil crisis of 1974: to end the dependence on foreign oil. Using hemp as a secure energy supply will increase cost efficiency and spin off economic benefits throughout the economy. It will generate new jobs and bring new industries and revenues to all regions. Our first fuel crop can be in by next summer and on the market by the fall--as soon as the bureaucrats step aside to let our farmers do the job.

In America, the people have the power to make that happen.17

1Strawn, Noni. 'Alcohol Fuels: Alternatives for today & the future.' in biologue. September 1990. pp.13-16

2 Ibid

3 Hurley, Timothy. 'Hemp ... advocate says crop too good to ignore.' in Maui News.HI. Nov. 10, 1991. p. D-1

4 10 tons biomass/acre, each yielding 100 gal. methanol/ton

5 BTU=British thermal unit; a standard unit of heat equal to 252 calories, the quantity of heat required to raise one pound of water from 62° to 63°F

6 Manahan, Stanley E. Environmental Chemistry. Willard Grant Press. 1984

7 The process was carried out in a fractionating column (a tall still) under high head, sometimes as high as 1000°F. Charcoal was the main product with methanol as a byproduct at about 1% to 2% of volume or 6 gallons per ton. this natural process was replaced by a synthetic process developed in 1927

8 Herer, Jack. Hemp & the Marijjuana Conspiracy: The Emperor Wears No Clothes. HEMP Publishing. Van Nuys CA. 1991. p. 43

9 Hydrogen & carbon monoxide in a two-to-one ratio

10 Osburn, Lynn. Energy Farming in America. Access Unlimited. Frazier Park CA. 1989

11 Ibid

12 The only sources of energy advanced by the policies of the oil & power companies or the federal government in the 1980s & early 1990s were fossil fuels & nuclear. Federal alternative energy spending peaked during the Carter years, the late 1970s.

13 Dewey & Merrill. 'Hemp hurds as a source of papermaking material.' in Bulletin 404. USDA. Washington DC. 1916. Even in Holland they got yields of 6-7 tons per acre. Meijer, E.P.M. de 'Hemp variations as pulp source researched in the Neterlands.' in Pulp & Paper. July 1993. pp. 41-42

14 In addition to the low THC content of industrial seedlines & the THC-lowering effect of the planting pattern, the leaves & flowers are collected as biomass.

15 Osburn. op. cit.

16 In 1991, petroleum was held at an artificially low price range, $20 to $40/barrel.

17 Provided for in the US Constitution