A winning combination…

The legendary music of Willie Nelson may not be his greatest contribution to the planet. It may be biodiesel made from …hemp. Yes, Willie didn’t smoke it all; he saved some to power his tour bus, my tractor and maybe your car, too!

In the mid 2000’s Willie had been promoting biodiesel made from hemp, and was honored by the USA Hemp Museum for his support. On the Willie Nelson Peace Research Institute website, there is a long list of positive attributes of hemp derived biofuels. We used hemp to help win World War II, can hemp help us win the war on terrorism, the fight for energy independence and free us from our enmeshment in fossil fuels all at the same time? Read on, patriots…

Hemp for Victory. Hemp for Peace.

Hemp for Victory was a USDA film that urged farmers to grow hemp during WW II for fiber.

Hempcar.org, a car that completed a 13,000 mile cross country tour powered by hemp fuel, has compiled the following facts about hemp biofuel:

• Hemp biodiesel forms 50% less smog than diesel fuel.
• Sulfur emissions are essentially eliminated with pure biodiesel.
• The exhaust emissions of carbon monoxide from biodiesel were 50 percent lower than carbon monoxide emissions from diesel.
• Breathing fine particulates has been shown to be a human health hazard. The exhaust emissions of particulate matter from biodiesel were 30 percent lower than overall particulate matter emissions from diesel.
• The exhaust emissions of total hydrocarbons (a contributing factor in the localized formation of smog and ozone) were 93 percent lower for biodiesel than diesel fuel.

Biodiesel is nontoxic. By comparison, table salt is nearly 10 times more toxic.

Biodiesel degrades about four times faster than petroleum diesel. Within 28 days, pure biodiesel degrades 85 to 88 percent in water. Dextrose degrades at the same rate. Blending biodiesel with diesel fuel accelerates its biodegradability. For example, blends of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel fuel degrade twice as fast as #2 diesel alone.

Hemp car was an alternative-fuel project car that utilized hemp biodiesel for fuel. Industrial hemp would be an economical fuel if hemp were legal to cultivate in the United States. Industrial hemp has no psychoactive properties and is not a drug. Hemp Car demonstrates the concept of hemp fuels on a national level and promotes the reformation of current law.

The car toured America, with stops in Canada, frequenting alternative-energy, environmental, and hemp-legalization events. The car generated publicity, emphasizing the utility of industrial hemp to modern society. The Hempcar established a world distance record for a vehicle utilizing hemp for fuel: 10,000 miles.

Willie Nelson started his own brand of biodiesel, BioWillie, and was selling it at 22 outlets by 2006. Questions about biofuels from corn, the energy returned on energy invested, and impacts on food prices put a crimp on biofuels. Then in 2009, Congress let the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit expire. This shut down much biodiesel development.

But in the face of the oil well blowout in the Gulf, our continued military costs in blood and gold to protect foreign sources of oil, and promising technologies from non-food crops like algae, switch grass, and hemp, should we freedom fighters be looking at biofuels again? We’ll let Willie close out with a song; “Take Back America”. Go Willie!