
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 23, 1993                   TAG: 9305240247
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

A GOOD IDEA GOES TO POT

WHEN CURTIS E. Douglas (May 6 letter, "Marijuana to the rescue of the planet") stated that hemp could be used as fuel, replacing fossil fuels as our primary source of energy, I suspected that he had been using some of hemp's byproducts in another manner.

First, his errors: Paper made from wood pulp is not environmentally destructive and even if hemp were all cellulose, it would not make a dime's worth of gasohol. The ethanol in gasohol is made from corn kernel, not the stalk.

As for hemp as primary fuel, did Douglas consider where or how it would be grown, who would grow and process it, how it would be shipped and stored, cost of conversion of existing boilers and furnaces from fossil fuels, etc.? Even a cursory analysis of these problems would result in the idea going up like - what else? - smoke. EDWARD D. SPEAR BEDFORD

by CNB