LITTLE ROCK — The United States must work toward energy independence and Arkansas has the necessary energy resources to help, leaders from across the eight-state Delta region heard today.
“Rural America really can contribute to the solution here,” U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., said during a speech at the Mississippi Delta Grassroots Caucus at the Clinton presidential library.
Pryor and Gov. Mike Beebe both spoke of the state’s abundance of natural gas in the Fayetteville Shale Play, the growth of wind-powered energy businesses in the state, development if biomass energy and the possibilities of lignite mining and oil drilling in south Arkansas. They urged urged the various entities to work together.
Pryor also said he supports the Keystone Pipeline project, which would construct a pipe line that would carry oil from Canada’s oil sands to the U.S. Gulf Coast. That project, he said, has been caught in presidential politics, but he thinks it will be approved after the November election.
He said he also supports more off-shore drilling for oil and natural gas.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“We need to increase our domestic supply,” he said.
Pryor said he recently filed legislation that would require a quadrennial energy review, similar to the study done every four years of the nation’s defense system.
“Energy is vitally important to the U.S.. economy,” he said. “We need a smart long-term strategy. The first step is we need to figure what our assets are, what are liabilities are, where we are strong, where we are weak.”
Pryor also said one of the main reasons for the high price of gasoline is speculators who have no desire of actually producing oil into gas.
“Right now,” he said, “oil is the most actively traded commodity in the world and 70 percent to 80 percent of those buying and selling oil right now have no intention of ever taking possession of a drop of that oil. They wouldn’t know what to do if they got it.
“They are not drillers, not refiners, not pipeline people. They are there just trying to make a buck in the oil markets.”
Pryor said he has filed legislation that would require that at least 50 percent of those who participate in the buying, trading and selling of oil futures actually be in a position to take possession of the oil.
During his speech, Pryor spoke of the city of Paragould’s involvement in the federal Biomass Crop Assistance project.
Acreage in that city, along with cities in Missouri, Ohio and Pennsylvania, has been set aside to grow giant miscanthus, a grass that can be converted into energy to be used for heat, power, liquid biofuels and bio-based products.
The grass, which is currently growing in a designated area in the city, will be cut in 2014 and converted into biofuel, he said.
“We hope to create a bio-refinery (that will) create a lot of jobs in eastern Arkansas, I think 750 in the Paragould area,” he said.
Beebe spoke of technology to convert biomass into gasoline, saying it has been developed, but is still too expensive for commercial use.
“I’m convinced it’s going to happen,” he said. “I am terribly disappointed it hasn’t already happened on a grand scale, but that doesn’t dissuade my enthusiasm for the prospects for the future.”
The governor said he was “all about energy independence for America.”
“And if you are all about energy independence for America,” he said, “then every portion of that equation, every particular aspect of energy, has to be included,” he said, mentioning natural gas and gasoline production, along with renewable energies such as wind, solar, water, biomass.