Educating our Leaders and Public on Industrial Hemp Bio-fuels

[Charles Wilson]

What is the best way to educate our government leaders and the general public on the tremendous value of legalizing and cultivating Hemp for bio-fules? Ron Paul supports the use of Hemp.

I wrote the foillowing letter to my congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite (FL):

As you know, this country is in serious trouble due to a lack of developed energy sources. Low cost bio-fuels that can be cultivated annually could provide much of the energy needed to power vehicles and machinery freeing up oil/carbon fuels for other uses.

Due to pure ignorance and greed by many, this country has banned one major source of potential energy. Industrial hemp could and should be cultivated on a large scale. Hemp is not a drug. I make the following point because, for what ever reason, hemp and marijuana are viewed by many in the government and the general public as having the same drug value when in fact they do not.

Just because plants come from the same family does not mean that they have all of the same characteristics. For example: Potatoes and tomatoes are in the same family Solanaceae or nightshade. As we all know, potatoes are classified as a vegetable and tomatoes as a fruit, yet they both come from the same plant family.


I am not a botanist however I do some farming. From my limited research, it appears that hemp can be a major source of bio-fuel for our country if it is made legal. Producing bio-fuel from hemp could provide our farmers -- large and small -- a crop that would not take away from our food supply. I hope that Congress will seriously investigate this possibility.

The following articles support my conclusion: http://www.gomestic.com/Consumer-Information/Cannabis-Sativa--Hemp-Revisited.33608; http://www.alternativeenergy.com/forum/topic/show?id=1066929%3ATopic%3A23526;

Cannabis Sativa: - Hemp Revisited

by Darlene McFarlane, Jul 8, 2007
While hemp and marijuana are both from the same plant family, Cannabis Sativa, they are of different varieties. Unlike marijuana, the Hemp plant has no drug value.

Hemp has always been a very versatile product with many medicinal and nutritional uses. It will grow in almost any climate and in nearly any type of soil with a growth rate of only 100 days. This makes it economical with up to 4 harvests a year and, the Hemp plant does not need pesticide or herbicides making it environmentally friendly.

Hemp is used in the making of many products such as; varnish, lubricating oil, paint, ink, cleaning solvents, dynamite, lamp oil, detergent, shampoo, soaps, lotions, cosmetics, waffle and pancake mix, milk free cheese, veggie burgers, protein bars, granola, salad dressing, margarine, Hemp oil supplements, hats, bags, shirts, backpacks, rope, twine, fishing nets, bedding, tents, footwear, sail boat sail and paper.

Hemp Facts:
Hemp oil supplements are rated the highest in Omega - 3 and Omega - 6 fatty acids.
Hemp is environmentally friendly and bio degradable.
Growing Hemp helps enrich soil.
Until the late 1800's nearly 90% of all paper produced in the U.S. was made from Hemp.
The Declaration of Independence was written on Hemp paper.

Hemp can be used as a fuel on it's own or mixed with diesel fuel.

Hemp is able to adapt to different climates.

Hemp is resistant to drought.
Paper made from Hemp can be recycled at least 7 times.

Hemp fuels are ozone friendly.
Until the early 1800's, Hemp was legal tender for paying bills and buying dry goods.
Salt is 10 times more toxic than Hemp.

Hemp can be harvested from 3 to 4 times a year yielding about 10 tons per acre in a 4 month period.

Hemp is used for MS, digestive disorders, asthma, glaucoma, muscle spasm, Crone's disease, and Alzheimer's.

Because Hemp is ten times stronger than cotton, it is ideal in the making of boat sails.

Most people don't know that Hemp paper is added to the making of cigarette papers, coffee filters and tea bags.

Hemp is mildew and heat resistant.
The first Levi Strauss jeans were made with light weight Hemp canvas.

Hemp is native to Central Asia and has been cultivated there for the past 12,000 years.

The word canvas is derived from the word cannabis.
Wearing clothes made from Hemp with repel insects.

The human brain produces cannabinoids. This is a compound present in Cannabis Sativa which is used in pain management.

Often Hemp is confused with marijuana. While they are both from the same plant family, Cannabis Sativa, they are of different varieties. It seems the American government's lack of this knowledge caused Hemp to be outlawed in 1937. Unlike marijuana, the Hemp plant has no drug value.


Industrial HEMP for biofuels

Posted by Jay on March 21, 2008 at 2:03pm in Autos and Biofuels
View Discussions

The advantages that any biofuels will deliver will be that they provide more BTU than it takes to
plant,maintain harvest and process. the USDA and University of Nebraska studied biomass from cellulose feed stock and what they found should be incouraging. A cellulose feedstock (like industrial hemp) can produce 540% more energy than it consumes in it's production.

When considering industrial hemp as the feed stock there are several advantages this weed provides over other feed stocks for biofuels. Hemp can be harvestede two to three times a season.

It can be grown on marginal lands,along the edges in areas where either nothing is currently growing or useless weeds thrive anyway. High yeild plants with thousands of uses besides energy this can create jobs in industries that have been outsourced. A few by products can help spread the risk out and diversify the portfolio of comodities. When hemp is xcompared to corn for biofuels hemp wins hands down. corn ethanol is inefficient as a fuel crop it produces only 25% more energy than it consumes to produce the ethanol fuels.

While I don't have conclusive studies I can cite that show the BTU value in Industrial hemp

I do belive it should be seriously researched and evaluated for energy potential. There are alot of marginal lands that could be put into production for biofuels and by-products. Not alot of watering is needed as most weeds get by just fine on rainfall this is the other real important concern of the future clean water. We are not going to be helping our water problems by using fertilizers and watering bio-fuels crops. We need the Johhny appleseed production model where by all marginal lands are put to production of some sort of sustainable Industrial Hemp production for the road to self suffeicency could be hydrogen gas derived from Industrial hemp grown on marginal lands.

Note: If you agree with the above please contact your representatives in Congress and ask them to legalize Industrial Hemp. Thanks

[jacmicwag]

This might be an interesting project. Have a few people band together and get permission to grow a small crop of industrial hemp. At the same time, build a small pilot plant that can process the hemp into bio fuels. Drive around in the Hemp-Mobile and get a ton of publicity. I don't know about the processing costs but it would have to be a ton cheaper to grow hemp than corn. I recall hearing somewhere that the corn ethanol plants have to be retrofitted to process switch grass, hemp, etc. Now that hundreds of corn ethanol plants have been built (and subsidized) in the US, there would be major lobbying to stop hemp bio fuels. Just another good fight.

[Charles Wilson]

This might be an interesting project. Have a few people band together and get permission to grow a small crop of industrial hemp. At the same time, build a small pilot plant that can process the hemp into bio fuels. Drive around in the Hemp-Mobile and get a ton of publicity. I don't know about the processing costs but it would have to be a ton cheaper to grow hemp than corn. I recall hearing somewhere that the corn ethanol plants have to be retrofitted to process switch grass, hemp, etc. Now that hundreds of corn ethanol plants have been built (and subsidized) in the US, there would be major lobbying to stop hemp bio fuels. Just another good fight.


Excellent suggestion. One idea may be to initially use Hemp grown in Canada for a pilot project to produce the fuel for a Hemp-Mobile. To prove its worth, it may be more doable and cost effective to build a bio-fuel processing plant in Canada initially. I agree, there would be major lobbying against Hemp bio-fuels here in the US.

[Zippyjuan]

What kind of yield (barrels of oil per acre) can you get from hemp? How many acres then do you need to replace our oil imports? How many acres of food production would you lose and see higher food prices? Remember there is a food or fuel trade-off when it comes to biofuels. One look from someone who examined the issue.
http://biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1434

Hemp Biodiesel: When the Smoke Clears
Hemp literally produces a “green” product when it’s used to make biodiesel. Despite the allure of the green-hued fuel, a close examination of the controversial crop reveals several barriers for its use as a biodiesel feedstock in the near future. However, as movers and shakers attempt to legalize hemp farming in the United States, those barriers could go up in smoke.
By Holly Jessen


Today, high demand within the food market, limited production and low yields per acre make industrial hemp unattractive as a viable option for biodiesel production. That could change, however, if states like North Dakota can overcome federal road blocks to produce industrial hemp in the United States.

Paul Bobbee, a Canadian hemp grower, knows firsthand that under current market conditions, using industrial hemp as a biodiesel feedstock just wouldn’t pay. Hemp farming has been legal in Canada for about six years, while in the United States farmers are having difficulty getting the proper approval from the federal government to produce hemp. Because only limited acres of hemp are being grown at this time, it’s considered a niche crop and garners premium prices for use in products for the human health food market. “Every pound that’s being produced goes into the food chain,” Bobbee tells Biodiesel Magazine.

Bobbee is in a unique position to understand the positives and negatives of hemp as a feedstock for biodiesel. In addition to owning and operating Midlake Specialty Food Products, which grows hemp near Arborg, Manitoba, he’s involved with Bifrost Bio-Blends. Bifrost is a 2 MMly to 10 MMly (0.5 MMgy to 2.6 MMgy) proposed biodiesel plant that investors hope will attract the financing necessary to produce biodiesel sometime in the beginning of 2007. The plant’s main feedstock will be locally produced canola.


If it were economically viable, Bobbee could get more excited about making biodiesel from hemp. Several years ago, when the Canadian hemp industry wasn’t as well-established as it is now, Bobbee found himself with a surplus on his hands. A large hemp purchasing company went bankrupt, and suppliers like Bobbee were faced with low prices and few marketing options. The situation was particularly dire because hemp seed deteriorates after about a year in storage. The seed that Bobbee was stuck with was starting to go rancid. Since it could no longer be used in the food market, he took 20,000 liters (about 5,300 gallons) of hemp oil and turned it into biodiesel. Not only did the biodiesel have wonderful properties—better cloud point and cetane value than biodiesel made from canola or soy oil—its distinctive green color was a great marketing tool.

That experience turned Bobbee into a fan of hemp biodiesel. Still, he’s a realist. As long as he and other hemp growers can get better prices from the food markets, they’ll continue to pursue that avenue. At current values of CAN$1,000 for a 45-gallon barrel of hemp oil, it just wouldn’t pay to make biodiesel out of the product. “It would be too cost prohibitive at this moment,” he says.
The only way Bobbee’s hemp seed would end up at the Bifrost Bio-Blends plant is if it didn’t meet food-quality standards or if there was ever a surplus of the seed.

Arthur Hanks, executive director of the Canadian Hemp Trade Alliance, agrees that there are too many factors working against the use of hemp as a biodiesel feedstock. “People talk about it, but there’s not really anything happening with that right now,” he tells Biodiesel Magazine.

Price is the big issue, Hanks says, echoing Bobbee’s sentiments. The human nutritional market pays well for hemp seed. Currently, conventionally grown hemp seed brings in about 45 Canadian cents a pound, he says. Certified organic seed garners 85 Canadian cents a pound, or nearly CAN$40 a bushel.

Then there’s the hurdle of limited supply. Although healthy demand has increased hemp production numbers in Canada, there’s just not enough quantity to go around. In 2005, 24,000 acres of hemp were planted in Canada, more than doubling to 50,000 acres in 2006. “That particularly, is very much an issue of economies of scale,” Hanks says. “We are still very much a specialty crop.”

Finally, there’s the relatively low oil productivity of hemp. Hemp seed does have a relatively high oil content of about 33 percent, compared with canola at about 40 percent. However, it has a low seed per-acre yield. Typically, an acre of hemp yields about 700 pounds of seed, although some farmers have enjoyed production numbers as high as 1,200 pounds an acre in good years, Hanks says. Canola growers, on the other hand, can reap a crop of anywhere from 1,500 to 2,600 pounds an acre.

(article continues at link)....




According to this source http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html hemp will yield on average 39 gallons of fuel per acre. Corn yield is 18 gallons an acre. A barrel of fuel is 42 gallons. Since we import 10.1 million barrels every day or 424 million gallons, we would need 10.87 million acres a day or almost 400 milllion acres of hemp to replace our fuel imports. We presently have 435 million acres of cropland http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm of which 295 million acres is harvested so that would replace all of our entire domestic food production. Just imagine what impact that would have on our food prices- and make us even more dependent on crucial imports.

[acroso]

I have trouble believing that Hemp is going to solve much of our alternative energy problems.

[pcosmar]

Unlike many of the food crops (corn especially) hemp can be grown almost anywhere without fertilizers and pesticides (cost savings), and on land that will not support foods crops well.
In areas (like mine) that produce mostly hay, it would be a great crop.
In southern areas they could get 2 or 3 harvests a year.

I am not sure of the production as we have no recent records to check, but I have heard as much as 300gal of oil per acre. (that may be optimistic)
That is not counting Bio-mass that could be turned into ethanol.

[Uriel999]

Hemp can also be used to build homes. It has an incredibly high cellulose content that can be used to make plastics as well. The uses for hemp and marijuana are so numerous it's unbelievable the stuff is illegal. The only crime when it comes to hemp and cannabis is that they have been made illegal.

http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html

That link is Jack Herer's classic book "The Emperor Wears No Clothes" and the text is available free at the link. I highly recommend it. It is actually fairly brief too and can probably be read in just a few hours.

[Grimnir Wotansvolk]

I've been giving speeches about hemp at town meetings, earth day fests, and in class before I graduated. I just ended up being laughed at every time though.

I worry it just might be too late. Words like "hemp" and "cannabis" carry so much connotative pollution that as soon as someone hears it, the cognitive associations take over and they're no longer capable of hearing simple logic. Fuck it.

[dannno]

Hemp is also the most nutritious plant known to man.

It contains lots of complete protein and tons of omega fatty acids. You can live off hempseed.

Hemp used to practically cover the entire United States until it was made illegal. There used to be fields of hemp that just grew randomly and went on for miles and miles.

No need to use "farm land" you can grow this stuff everywhere. It is non-invasive so it won't run out other species.

It is God's gift to man and we made it illegal.

[dannno]

I worry it just might be too late. Words like "hemp" and "cannabis" carry so much connotative pollution that as soon as someone hears it, the cognitive associations take over and they're no longer capable of hearing simple logic. Fuck it.

QFT :(

[UnReconstructed]

hemp = freedom

[Charles Wilson]

What kind of yield (barrels of oil per acre) can you get from hemp? How many acres then do you need to replace our oil imports? How many acres of food production would you lose and see higher food prices? Remember there is a food or fuel trade-off when it comes to biofuels. One look from someone who examined the issue.
http://biodieselmagazine.com/article.jsp?article_id=1434



According to this source http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_yield.html hemp will yield on average 39 gallons of fuel per acre. Corn yield is 18 gallons an acre. A barrel of fuel is 42 gallons. Since we import 10.1 million barrels every day or 424 million gallons, we would need 10.87 million acres a day or almost 400 milllion acres of hemp to replace our fuel imports. We presently have 435 million acres of cropland http://www.ers.usda.gov/StateFacts/US.htm of which 295 million acres is harvested so that would replace all of our entire domestic food production. Just imagine what impact that would have on our food prices- and make us even more dependent on crucial imports.

Thanks for the link. I find the following excerpt very interesting "Paul Bobbee, a Canadian hemp grower, knows firsthand that under current market conditions, using industrial hemp as a biodiesel feedstock just wouldn’t pay. Hemp farming has been legal in Canada for about six years, while in the United States farmers are having difficulty getting the proper approval from the federal government to produce hemp. Because only limited acres of hemp are being grown at this time, it’s considered a niche crop and garners premium prices for use in products for the human health food market. “Every pound that’s being produced goes into the food chain,” Bobbee tells Biodiesel Magazine."

I can certainly understand why the severly limited acres of Hemp is classified as a "niche crop" and is mostly used in the food chain. Grown on a large scale, providing the energy gained from producing fuel far exceeds the energy required to produce it, it will not replace the fossil fuels completely but it could help solve our energy shortage in the short and long term. It could replace the corn ethanol that is affecting our food supply.

[Charles Wilson]

I've been giving speeches about hemp at town meetings, earth day fests, and in class before I graduated. I just ended up being laughed at every time though.

I worry it just might be too late. Words like "hemp" and "cannabis" carry so much connotative pollution that as soon as someone hears it, the cognitive associations take over and they're no longer capable of hearing simple logic. Fuck it.

You will not hear any laughter from me. Pure ignorance and greed is responsible for the demise of Hemp in this country. Educating our government leaders and the general public will take some doing but I believe the time is coming, sooner rather than later, when folks will stop snickering and start listening when Hemp is mentioned, especially when they cannot buy fossil fuels at the local gas station.

I am no expert on the value of Hemp. Would you be so kind as to answer the various questions raised by our fellow forum members relating to Industrial Hemp?

I would like to know what part of the plant is used to produce the fuel and how much fuel could be produced per ton. Can the remaining stalk be used for other products? Also, can existing ethanol plants be used to produce bio-fuels from Hemp,or would it be more cost effective to build a new processing plant just for Hemp?

Best regards

[Charles Wilson]

Ask and you shall receive! A Hempmobile already exist. See: http://hempcar.org/indexOLD.html

[jacmicwag]

Hemp is also the most nutritious plant known to man.

It contains lots of complete protein and tons of omega fatty acids. You can live off hempseed.

Hemp used to practically cover the entire United States until it was made illegal. There used to be fields of hemp that just grew randomly and went on for miles and miles.

No need to use "farm land" you can grow this stuff everywhere. It is non-invasive so it won't run out other species.

It is God's gift to man and we made it illegal.

Maybe we should be eating this stuff instead of smoking it!