John Deere combines will be landing at the nation’s 15,079 airports soon if President Obama and his green energy team get their way.
Seemingly dead set against drilling for more fossil fuels, the administration is eyeing an unusual idea of turning airports into biofuel producers, planting grasses that can be brewed into ethanol. But there’s a hitch: they first have to figure out which grasses won’t attract deer and birds that could get in the way of fast-moving aircraft.
The ideas surfaced today in a release from the Agriculture Department which noted that some airports are already using wasted space as solar and wind farms. Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack is already onboard the plan to farm fuel at airports. “Converting airport grasslands to biofuel, solar or wind production not only provides more environmentally-sound alternative energy sources for our country, but may also increase revenue for airports,” he said.
Vilsack touted a USDA study that said one advantage to farming fuel at airports is that nobody really cares what it looks like, thereby avoiding fights with locals opposed to windmills and solar panels. Plus, some airports already lease land to farmers for grain production.
Safety to the main business of airports–jets and planes–is the biggest hang up. Many facilities have sophisticated systems to keep deer and geese away and introducing new fields of grass may reverse those successes. Unfortunately, said the USDA study, “We are aware of no studies that have quantified wildlife response to various vegetation types and associated risks to aviation.”
The animal threat is real. The report said that economic losses from wildlife collisions are estimated to cost $600 million annually. From 1912 to 2008, added the report, bird strikes alone have killed 276 and destroyed 108 civil aircraft.
