Nebraska has one of most precious commodities in the world – Ogallala Aquifer. While the world runs on fossil fuel (harder and more expensive to extract and taken a huge environmental toll on the planet) fresh water is fast becoming a scared resource, also.

The Ogallala Aquifer is a vast underground system that spans from South Dakota to Texas with smaller portions in Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming. It is one of the world’s largest aquifer systems, storing nearly as much water as Lake Erie and Lake Huron combined. Yet this seemingly limitless water supply, a key component supporting the Great Plains’ bountiful agriculture production, is shrinking, according to researchers at Michigan State University, who are helping shape the future of the High Plains’ water supply.

The economy of Nebraska literally depends on the resources of the Ogallala Aquifer. Conservation and improving technology in the form of water saving applications and new crop hybrids is helping Nebraska use that resource more efficiently and at the same time add value to the state’s economy.

It makes sense that people are concern about an oil pipeline going across the most precious natural resource Nebraska has to offer.

The National Science Foundation has awarded MSU $1.2 million to help shape a course to better manage this important natural resource. The multidisciplinary team of researchers, led by hydrogeologist David Hyndman, will use the four-year grant to develop a sustainability plan based on economic, sociological and geographic issues affecting the aquifer.

“For more than 80 years, the Ogallala Aquifer has been used for irrigation, and the withdrawals far exceed its ability to replenish itself,” said Hyndman, who worked with the Kansas Geological Survey on this project. “We are on an unsustainable course and must make difficult changes if we are to keep using some of the best agricultural land in the country.”

Researchers will review decades of scientific data. They also will study the interactions between the region’s landscape, atmosphere and socioeconomic systems and link this data with climate, hydrology, vegetation and economic models.

The end result will produce predictions and impact assessments covering a range of potential solutions. Community and government leaders will be able to implement the team’s forecasts to adjust land management policies and to make strides toward sustainable water-use practices.

“Navigating a patchwork of state laws, regulations and economics means any change will require complex solutions,” Hyndman said. “And since scientific solutions don’t exist in a vacuum, our plan will also address social and economic variables.”

According to Paul Blackburn, staff attorney for Plains Justice, which is located in Vermillion, on Monday, the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) announced that it intends to conduct a rulemaking to revise nationwide pipeline safety standards. 

Specifically, he said, PHMSA issued an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking public and industry comment on a number of safety issues (full Federal Register notice and link below).  Persons interested in submitting written comments must do so by January 18, 2011.

Blackburn said a rash of recent fatal natural gas pipeline explosions and major oil pipeline spills have focused attention on the federal government’s failure to adequately protect citizens and the environment from the risks posed by high-pressure oil and gas pipelines.  In response to calls for reform from citizens and elected officials, he said PHMSA has proposed to regulate more miles of pipelines and to strengthen safety standards for the pipelines it already regulates.  

 Blackburn said PHMSA seeks comment on whether additional miles of pipeline in rural areas should be subject to the more stringent pipeline inspection standards used in populated areas. 

It also seeks comment on:

 *whether to adopt standards for leak detections systems from natural gas and oil pipelines;

*how long pipeline companies should have to fix at-risk pipelines;

*whether there is a greater need for additional emergency valves; and

*whether to establish standards to prevent pipeline stress crack corrosion.

 However, since this is an advance notice of proposed rulemaking, Blackburn concerned citizens may raise other safety issues for consideration by PHMSA. 

 He said this rulemaking represents a major opportunity for the public to engage in and improve pipeline safety. 

“The pipeline industry has watered down too many safety requirements, placing concern for their bottom lines ahead of human lives and environmental destruction,” he said.  “We need to tip the scales back toward greater protection so that citizens who live and work near dangerous pipelines don’t pay with their lives and property.”

 PHMSA is seeking comment on a limited set of issues (see below).  However, since this is an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, comments could identify additional pipeline safety issues that the public believes are important. 

 For more information:  http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/2010-26006.htm

According to NOAA, the first nine months of 2010 tied with the same period in 1998 for the warmest combined land and ocean surface temperature on record.

NOAA officials reported that the global average land surface temperature for January-September was the second warmest on record, behind 2007. The global ocean surface temperature for January–September was also the second warmest on record, behind 1998.

The monthly analysis from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which is based on records going back to 1880, is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides government, business and community leaders, so they can make informed decisions.

According to NOAA, global temperature highlights, were:

• For the year-to-date, the global combined land and ocean surface temperature of 58.67 F (14.75 C) tied with 1998 as the warmest January-September period on record. This value is 1.17 F (0.65 C) above the 20th century average.
• The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for September 2010 tied with 1998 as the eighth warmest on record at 59.9 F (15.5 C), which is 0.90 F (0.50 C) above the 20th century average of 59.0 F (15.0 C).
• Separately, the September global land surface temperature was 1.19 F (0.66 C) above the 20th century average of 53.6 F (12.0 C) — the ninth warmest September on record. Warmer-than-average conditions dominated the world’s land areas. The most prominent warmth was in western Alaska, most of the contiguous United States, eastern Canada, Greenland, the Middle East, eastern and central Europe, western and far eastern Russia and northeastern Asia. Cooler-than-average regions included much of Australia, western Canada, parts of the northern United States, parts of western and central Europe, and central Russia.

Hemp is one of the versatile and productive crops out there, but illegal for farmers to grow in the United States.

We need to throw out those arcane laws we have about hemp production and turn the productivity of the American farmer loose on this valuable crop. Nebraska is an ideal state to grow this once glorious crop of American agriculture.

By the way, it was the preferred crop of our Founding Fathers as both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew hemp. Ben Franklin owned a milled that made hemp paper. If we grew hemp we wouldn’t have to chop down so many trees as more than 75 percent of the world’s paper was made from hemp until 1883.

By the way, Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper!

And now, we can help free our country from its dependence on foreign oil by allowing American farmers to make a cash crop out of hemp for biofuel production and thousands of other uses this mircle crop can be transformed into.

It’s a new Declaration of Independence: Grow hemp!

According to the University of Connecticut, researchers there  have found that the fiber crop Cannabis sativa, known as industrial hemp, has properties that make it viable and even attractive as a raw material, or feedstock, for producing biodiesel – sustainable diesel fuel made from renewable plant sources.

The plant’s ability to grow in infertile soils also reduces the need to grow it on primary croplands, which can then be reserved for growing food, says Richard Parnas, a professor of chemical, materials, and biomolecular engineering who led the study.

“For sustainable fuels, often it comes down to a question of food versus fuel,” says Parnas, noting that major current biodiesel plants include food crops such as soybeans, olives, peanuts, and rapeseed. “It’s equally important to make fuel from plants that are not food, but also won’t need the high-quality land.”

Industrial hemp is grown across the world, in many parts of Europe and Asia. Fiber from the plant’s stalk is strong, and until the development of synthetic fibers in the 1950s, it was a premier product used worldwide in making rope and clothing.

Today, there are still parts of the world that rely on Cannabis stalks as a primary fiber, mainly because of its ability to grow “like a weed,” without requiring lots of water, fertilizers, or high-grade inputs to flourish. But the seeds, which house the plant’s natural oils, are often discarded. Parnas points out that this apparent waste product could be put to good use by turning it into fuel.

“If someone is already growing hemp,” he says, “they might be able to produce enough fuel to power their whole farm with the oil from the seeds they produce.” The fact that a hemp industry already exists, he continues, means that a hemp biodiesel industry would need little additional investment.

With his graduate student Si-Yu Li and colleagues James Stuart of the Department of Chemistry and Yi Li of the Department of Plant Sciences, Parnas used virgin hemp seed oil to create biodiesel using a standardized process called transesterification. The group then tested the fuel for a suite of characteristics in the BiofuelsTesting Laboratory at UConn’s Center for Environmental Science and Engineering.

The hemp biodiesel showed a high efficiency of conversion – 97 percent of the hemp oil was converted to biodiesel – and it passed all the laboratory’s tests, even showing properties that suggest it could be used at lower temperatures than any biodiesel currently on the market.

Although growing hemp is not legal in the U.S., Parnas hopes that the team’s results will help to spur hemp biodiesel production in other parts of the world. UConn holds a patent on a biodiesel reactor system that could be customized to make biodiesel from a range of sustainable inputs, hemp included.

“Our research data could make buying a reactor system with our technology more attractive,” says Parnas. “If we have data for the production of many different feedstocks, we can tailor the system to meet the company’s needs.”

Parnas, Yi Li, and colleagues Steven Suib of the Department of Chemistry, Fred Carstensen of the Department of Economics, and Harrison Yang of the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment are preparing to build a pilot biodiesel production facility using a two-year, $1.8 million grant from the Department of Energy.

The reactor will be capable of producing up to 200,000 gallons of biodiesel per year, and while this production rate is small in comparison to commercial biodiesel reactors, the main use of the facility will be to test new ways to produce biodiesel, including catalysts and feedstocks. Ultimately, the team will perform economic analyses on commercializing their methods.

As for other industries that utilize Cannabisplants, Parnas makes a clear distinction between industrial hemp, which contains less than 1 percent psychoactive chemicals in its flowers, and some of its cousins, which contain up to 22 percent.

“This stuff,” he points out, “won’t get you high.”

Wake up America!