Lansing State Journal, MI

Lansing State Journal, MI 06-26-07

Bioenergy research center means 100 Michigan jobs

Jeremy W. Steele Lansing State Journal

Michigan State University will team up with the University of Wisconsin to run one of three federal bioenergy research centers in a move that will create 100 jobs in Michigan, including some in the Lansing area.

The U.S. Department of Energy said this afternoon the Great Lakes Bioenergy ,Research Center will be led by the University of Wisconsin from its Madison campus, with MSU as its lead partner. The team will share a $125 million grant over the next five years.

The new Great Lakes center will work to “remove the bottlenecks” that keep cellulosic ethanol from mass production, officials said.

“We’re especially excited to have this center hosted in America’s agricultural belt, where we are literally surrounded by the biomass that will feed this pipeline,” said center director Timothy Donohue, a U-W bacteriologist who heads the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative.

MSU officials said the university will get $50 million of the grant over five years.

Other partners in the Great Lakes center include the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn.; Lucigen Corp. in Middleton, Wis.; University of Florida; Illinois State University, and Iowa State University.

Other research centers are slated for Oak Ridge, Tenn.; and near Berkeley, Calif.

The centers are intended to accelerate basic research in the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels. It is part of President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Initiative, which seeks to reduce U.S. gasoline consumption by 20 percent within 10 years through increased efficiency and diversification of clean energy sources.

Cellulosic ethanol can be made from a variety of plant-based materials. Most U.S. ethanol supplies now come from corn.

“Corn ethanol has its virtues, but it also has its limits,” U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said. “For biofuels to really put a dent in our energy consumption without putting a dent in our food supply, and put a dent in carbon emissions, we need to lean to make biofuels from cellulose.