Debate at the national level, leading to Election Day, involves two issues that could present unique opportunities for Maine if a coalition can overcome them: independence from foreign oil, and keeping good jobs in this country.

Independence from foreign oil is the buzz in the United States, driven by national security concerns and the effect on our wallets from rising prices at the pump. Americans watch as billions of hard-earned dollars flow overseas to countries that leverage those dollars to build their economies.

What if those billions of dollars stayed in this country, and what if a portion even stayed in this state, to purchase energy from our own sources and invest in our own communities?

An industrial revolution based on sustainability and products and energy sources from renewable resources is how Maine might do it.

The concept is to look at Maine’s forests as not only material for pulp and paper production, but as raw material for production of fuel ethanol and other value-added bioproducts like plastics. On the national level, the discussion is about ethanol from corn; we have seen what that does to food prices.

But what about ethanol from wood?

Wood is not a food source, unlike corn-based ethanol. Wood ethanol is more efficient than corn ethanol, which often requires more energy to produce than it yields. But wood is late to get into the public eye, as billions of dollars in federal subsidies have flowed towards corn. Those subsidies and rising food prices has led to debate against ethanol, when corn may never have been a sustainable approach.

This is where the concept gets interesting. Maine’s pulp and paper mill communities, in particular those with a chemical pulping process like Jay and Rumford, are uniquely positioned to transition from pulp and paper to a new framework of forest-product biorefineries.

They are set to process large amounts of wood with access to transportation, wood yards and equipment to move tons of wood with ease. Mills already have significant infrastructure for utilities such as process water, electricity and waste treatment, all which could be leveraged in a new process

Could Maine’s pulp and paper mills, once the economic engine of not only their host towns but the state, be transformed into plants for making renewable fuels with pulp and paper as a “side” business?

That day could be at hand.

Due to the unique process developed at the University of Maine, the Department of Energy has awarded $30 million to advance a pilot, commercial-scale biorefinery that is being matched by private investment. This pilot is likely to be constructed at the former Georgia Pacific mill in Old Town.

Predicting that a new market could emerge to make this effort viable, Safe Handling recently unveiled a 150-acre terminal in Auburn designed to handle the distribution of alternative fuels in Maine and beyond.

With assistance from a state rail investment program, private dollars were put into the ground to advance key infrastructure to support this emerging industry.

And just over a month ago, the Maine Technology Institute awarded a grant to a forest products trade group to analyze the market opportunities in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes to move towards bioenergy in that industry.

Yet this opportunity to create fuels in Maine and generate jobs in our traditional industry towns and spinoffs statewide faces challenges. Those must be addressed now, not pushed aside or left to towns or regions to decide.

Will our tax structure support or discourage such investment at these mills and other businesses that will support it?

Would the permitting process be too onerous and lengthy for such projects to happen here, if they could possibly go to mills in other states and be running more quickly?

If there is support for renewable fuel from wood, could federal subsidies for corn ethanol be siphoned to let the best raw material can rise to the top?

On what scale is the public sector willing to invest in infrastructure to draw that private investment?

And most important, do Mainers have vision for what could be, so we can overcome those who say we can’t?

Jonathan LaBonte, of New Auburn, is a columnist for the Sun Journal. E-mail: [email protected].