Forest Service chief: Use trees to power cars

[Kadie]

Forest Service chief: Use trees to power cars
Kimbell proposes using wood- and brush-based ethanol as gas alternative


Updated: 37 minutes ago

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Forest Service chief is proposing replacing 15 percent of the nation's gasoline with ethanol made from wood, while doubling the amount of carbon dioxide emissions absorbed by public and private forests.

"These are ambitious goals, and they would take a concerted national effort to reach," Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell said in remarks prepared for a speech before the Society of Environmental Journalists Friday night in San Francisco.

They also appear contradictory. But such a plan is consistent with President Bush's goal cutting gasoline use by 20 percent while expanding reliance on ethanol, which is a central part of his energy policy. He has sent Congress a proposal mandating the use of 35 billion gallons a year of "alternative" fuels, mostly ethanol, by 2017.

Kimbell said that "with the technologies now becoming available, we could replace as much as 15 percent of our current gasoline consumption with ethanol from wood -- and not just any wood, but wood that is not now being used for other purposes."

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Asked how the nation could churn out vastly more wood for ethanol while rapidly growing more forests, Kimbell's spokeswoman, Allison Stewart, said in an interview Friday night that the wood for ethanol would come mainly from brush that the Bush administration's "healthy forests" law now requires to be thinned to prevent wildfires.

"A lot of our forests across our country are unhealthy because they're overstocked. There's a lot of unhealthy underbrush," Stewart said. "That's where we're talking about getting the bio-energy from. It's from the reduction of flammable fuels in the forests -- instead of just burning it up in piles or grinding it up."

more...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20650013



President Bush speaks about cellulosic ethanol made from spruce wood chips during a tour of a biotechnology company in Franklinton, N.C., in February. Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell says the U.S. should replace 15 percent of its gasoline with ethanol made from wood and brush cleared from forests.