Ben Franklin's solution to the energy problems in the 1700s and it can be used today

Planting Chinese Tallow Trees to save the Planet and solve our Energy problem

 

 

 

My name is David Whetsell and I love this country. We are slowly going broke as we continue to pour out our hard earned dollars into foreign countries. Our politicians never seem to take any assertive action. That is why I am sending this message out.

 

I don’t profess to be an expert and I am only reporting from articles I have read on the internet and talking with friends. I have not spoken with the researchers who were responsible for the articles and I hope I have not done anything of an impropriety by sending this out.  Please send a message that this is one way to create our own oil within the United States. I hope a lot of people with power and assets will take heed to this article and do something. Also, I hope this gets a lot of supporters like me and we all can sway our politicians and farmers to act.

Sincerely,David Whetsell, American, ,[email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

According to the USDA plant guide, “The Chinese tallow tree (Sapium sebiferum) was introduced into the United States from China in 1776 by Ben Franklin (Randall & Marinelli 1996). The common name comes from the waxy tallow derived from the white covering of the seed that has been used historically to make soap and candles. It has been cultivated in China for at least 14 centuries as a seed crop and as an ornamental. In the early 1900s, the Foreign Plant Introduction Division of the U.S. Department of Agriculture promoted tallow tree planting in Gulf Coast states to establish a local soap industry (Flack & Furlow 1996). Since that time, the species has been planted in the U.S. mainly for its unique ornamental qualities including colorful, autumnal foliage.

 

July (Photo by J. Miller)

 

 

 

 

The plants have tremendous reproductive potential. They may reach reproductive age in as little as three years and remain productive for 100 years (Duke 1983). In greenhouse experiments, some trees grown from seed flowered in their first year of growth (Grace 1997). A mature tree may annually produce an average of 100,000 seeds. An average yield per tree is about 30-48 lbs fruits which contain about 40% tallow and oil. The cake remaining after oil extraction is used for animal feed. The fruit consists of 27-33% tallowy seed coat, 36-41% shell and 29-35% kernel (dry basis). Both the outer seed coat and the kernel are very high in fat 55-78% and 53-64% respectively.”

 

The Chinese Academy of Forestry stated “Tallow Tree (Sapium sebiferum) is an important woody oil plant in China, found in 15 provinces. It covers more than 200,000 hectares with annual output of about 85,000 tons. The oil is extracted from the seed of tallow tree. China has made certain achievements in the utilization of tallow tree fat and the exploitation of new woody oil plants in recent years. There is a small quantity exported, mainly to Europe and America.”

 

Dr. PAUL A. OLIVIER Produced a Report call “From Field to Factory to Diesel Tank“ and said in part the following:

 

“Louisiana farmers stand in need of a new cash crop, and the cultivation of the Chinese Tallow tree, an ideal oil bearing plant for biodiesel production, it would fulfill this need in a timely manner. Within just a few years after planting, this perennial plant bears seed and continues to do so for decades. Once established in Louisiana soils, as every farmer and rancher in the state can attest, this plant requires no irrigation, no herbicides, no fungicides, no insecticides, no tillage and very little fertilization. Its principle requirement would be an annual pruning and harvesting, and both could be accomplished in a one-pass operation using existing agricultural equipment modified for high clearance. This energy crop would create no soil erosion and runoff, and unlike conventional agriculture that heavily depends on inorganic fertilizers that deplete soil carbon, this new agricultural initiative would do just the opposite.

Since the Tallow tree is highly resistant to drought, flooding, fire, cold, bacteria, virus, fungi, nematodes, mites, grasshoppers, beetles and all other insects that relish living biomass,the farmer would entertain very little risk in growing it, and since mature seed remain on the Tallow tree during fall and winter for well over two months, the farmer would entertain very little risk in harvesting it. With no growing or harvesting risk, the farmer would not need crop insurance, and since he would expend very little energy in cultivating this plant and transporting its seed to local biodiesel refineries, the entire supply chain, from field to factory to diesel tank, would be local, short and extremely efficient. Since the cultivation of this plant demands so little input from the farmer, no plant grown on Louisiana soils could possibly produce a fuel of a higher net energy balance.

 

THE FOOD OR FUEL DEBATE

But why do we extract oil from an edible, annual food commodity like soy or peanuts, when we could extract it from a largely inedible, perennial commodity that, unlike soy and peanuts, consumes very little fertilizer and fuel, and at the same time produces far more oil?

 

 

BENEFITS

If we were to take a relatively small portion of US farmland out of food production and devote it to the cultivation of the Tallow tree, our energy crisis would disappear, and eventually US farmers might realize that it is in the best interest of every American taxpayer if they were to compete in global food markets without government subsidies. Every farmer and every American taxpayer would benefit from this modest shift from food to fuel. As more farm land would be set aside for oil and alcohol production from the Tallow tree, food commodity prices would rise, our nation would import no oil to meet its transportation needs, our trade deficit would decrease, our dollar would increase in value, inflationary pressures driven by rising oil prices would decrease, and the United States would be less prone to engage in war in the midst of oil-producing countries that sponsor terrorism.

 

 

CONCLUSION

This proposal contradicts everything that Big Oil stands for, and it boldly predicts that the state of Louisiana, in less than 15 years from now, will be a world leader in the production of green energy. To do this it will have to make friends with a plant that it has always considered to be its enemy. But making friends with this wild and unruly pest should prove to be far easier than making friends with many of the countries who currently ship us oil.”

 

My conclusion is that the Chinese Tallow Tree will be the new feedstock for the production of biodiesel. Soybeans yield about 50 gallons of oil and 1200 lbs of animal feed a year. Soybeans have to be planted every year, and need pesticides and herbicides. The Chinese Tallow Tree (CTT) needs to be planted once. In each acre planted, the CTT will yield about 600 gallons of oil and 1400 lbs of feed per year for the farmer, his children, his grandchildren and etc.... The CTT only needs to be harvested and pruned once a year in the late fall. The data shows that CTT will not take from the food chain, but add to it. We must push to have CTT as a major crop in our states, and to become major exporters of biodiesel and high protein animal feed. If all the southern States (SC, GA, FLA, ALA, MISS, TENN, NC, LA, ARK and TEXAS) plant 5% (22 million acres) of their land in Chinese tallow trees they would yield about 13.4 billion gallons of biodiesel and 15.8 million tons of animal feed a year. The top Universities in the South are working on using the Chinese Tallow Tree as a biodiesel feedstock.

 

Abandoned Farmlands Are Key to Sustainable Bioenergy

 

“Biofuels can be a sustainable part of the world's energy future, especially if
bioenergy agriculture is developed on currently abandoned or degraded
agricultural lands, report scientists from the Carnegie Institution and Stanford
University. Using these lands for energy crops, instead of converting existing
croplands or clearing new land, avoids competition with food production and
preserves carbon-storing forests needed to mitigate climate change. Sustainable
bioenergy is likely to satisfy no more than 10% of the demand in the
energy-intensive economies.”

 

Jaricus A. Whitlock and Dr. Rafael Hernandez, Dave C. Swalm School of Chemical Engineering, Mississippi State University will do a study on In-Transesterification of Chinese Tallow Oil to Biodiesel.

 

Siemann, Rogers, and Saara DeWalt, the Huxley Instructor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Rice University, are growing seedlings from seeds collected from states across the southern U.S.

Credits

 

1. USDA NRCS Plant Guide

2. Invasive Plant Pest Species of South Carolina by Clemson Ext.

States with suspected infestations are shown in gray.

June (Photo by T. Bodner)

September (Photo by F. Nation)

Author's Note

Just the facts