Tree Farmer - March/April 2008 - (Page 12)

By Reynolds RF, SR, ACF TEDDY Biofuels: Running out of Time timber talk 12 Biofuels are increasingly front-page news. The reason is simple: We are rapidly depleting our domestic oil supply and increasing our dependency on politically unstable foreign oil suppliers. The United States is currently the third largest producer of oil in the world; and without discovery of new oil, the United States will exhaust domestic supplies in less than 20 years. We are currently surpassed in oil production by Saudi Arabia and Russia (U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, 2007). If you look at the total oil reserves, we are ranked ninth, with the top four being Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Kuwait. In an attempt to decrease our dependency on foreign oil, Congress in the past eight years passed two key bills mandating the increased use of ethanol and biofuels. The 2005 Energy Bill required substituting 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol/biodiesel per year in our Photo credit: Reynolds Forestry gasoline supply by 2012. Entrepreneurs and farmers responded by diverting corn into ethanol refineries, which helped to double corn prices. If Marie Antoinette were alive today she might have said to Third World Teddy Reynolds is president of Reynolds Forestry Consulting in Magnolia, Arkansas. His awardwinning radio program, Timber Talk, can be heard at . Tree Farmer MARCH/APRIL 2008 http://www.timbertalk.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Tree Farmer - March/April 2008

Tree Farmer - March/April 2008
Contents
Cover Story
Timber Talk
Ties to the Land
Habitat: Assess Suitability and Management
2007 North Central Regional Tree Farmer of the Year
Tools & Techniques
Wildlife Matters
Sharing Your Experience

Tree Farmer - March/April 2008