Ithaca, New York
September 21, 2005In a
time of skyrocketing gasoline prices and concerns over global
warming, Cornell University
is helping to spearhead the next green revolution by using
plants to produce energy, industrial chemicals and green
materials.
Awarded more than $8.2 million
in federal funding over four years through the recent signing of
the federal Transportation Bill, Cornell has been tapped by the
federal government as one of five Sun Grant Centers of
Excellence -- regional hubs that will take the lead in
researching the use of plant biomass in energy and chemical
production; for education and outreach activities; and for
soliciting and funding proposals that focus on using renewable
agricultural resources to produce heat, electricity, biofuels,
natural products, such as biopesticides and bioherbicides, and
industrial chemicals.
"With our global community
entering a less certain oil future, over the next 10 to 25
years, there will be a major transition to agricultural-based
bio-industries," said Larry Walker, professor of biological and
environmental engineering at Cornell and director of the
institute.
Cornell, the land-grant
university of New York state, is the lead university for the
Northeast Sun Grant Institute of Excellence, which serves 14
states and the District of Columbia, from Maine to Maryland to
Michigan. That makes Cornell one of only two universities in the
nation, along with Oregon State University, now designated by
the federal government in all of the four categories of land,
sea, space and sun grant institutions.
"Genomics, nanobiotechnology
and breakthroughs in molecular biology, genetics and biological
engineering have opened up a broad spectrum of opportunities and
challenges for manipulating microbial and plant systems to
produce novel organic compounds and to meet part of the U.S. and
world energy needs," said Walker. "Opportunities abound for
integrating these advances in engineering and science into
regional, national and global efforts to develop sustainable
industries and communities."
Involving at least two dozen
Cornell faculty members, the institute was established in 2004
at Cornell. But it was not until the passing of the
Transportation Bill in August that the institute was given the
funding needed to solicit and award competitive grants to
regional land-grant universities to work in partnership with
industry, governmental agencies, communities, private
entrepreneurs and others stakeholders for bringing the
bio-economy to the region.
The Northeast Sun Grant
Initiative will focus on biopower -- energy produced from
renewable biomass for heat and electricity; biofuels -- liquid
and gaseous transportation fuels, such as bioethanol and
biodiesel, made from biomass resources; and bioproducts --
chemicals and materials that are traditionally made from
petroleum-based resources but will be made from biomass. In each
of these strategic areas, initiatives will involve feedstock
development, conversion processes, systems integration and
biomass public policy issues.
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Corinne Rutzke
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Kate O'Conner, a civil and
environmental engineering graduate student, is working
in the Walker Lab on pretreatment of switchgrass and
alfalfa. Pretreatment of crop residues high in cellulose
makes it easier for enzymes or microbes to access and
break down the cellulose into more valuable sugars. |
Currently, less than 10 percent
of chemicals and commodities and less than 5 percent of U.S.
energy supplies are derived from agriculturally based resources,
Walker pointed out.
"Our vision is to rethink how
many of the material needs of society can be met by using
renewable agriculturally based raw materials," Walker said,
noting that Cornell is an ideal location for the Northeast Sun
Grant Institute because "it is one of very few institutions in
the world that can bring together so many physical and life
scientists, engineers and social scientists with the talent and
interest in sustainable development, or that has access to so
many bright young minds."
The Sun Grant centers not only
will promote the development of bio-based energy technologies
but also environmental sustainability as well as boost the
economic vitality and diversity of rural communities, said
Walker. He praised New York's congressional representatives --
Sherwood Boehlert, Maurice Hinchey and Jerome Nadler as well as
U.S. Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer -- for their
support of funding for the consortium. Gov. George Pataki's
Washington office was also helpful in the political process, he
said.
Michael Hoffman, director of
the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, said:
"Funding of the Sun Grant is truly great news for Cornell, the
Northeast and the nation. The Sun Grant is well positioned to
help us diversify our energy supply portfolio, more important
now then ever before, and generate a multitude of new natural
products and industrial chemicals. We see many economic and
environmental benefits for New York state farms and communities
thanks to the Sun Grant."
The Northeast Sun Grant
Institute at Cornell serves a region that includes the states of
Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan,
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode
Island, Vermont, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. The other
regional Sun Grant Centers of Excellence are at Oregon State
University-Corvallis; University of Tennessee-Knoxville;
Oklahoma State University, Stillwater; and South Dakota State
University-Brookings.
Campus bio-energy and
bioproducts projects:
With more than 400 life
scientists at Cornell, a multitude of bio-energy and bioproducts
projects are already under way on campus. They include:
- pretreating switch grass
and alfafa to improve their enzyme conversion to fermentable
sugars;
- engineering enzymes that
are more effective in converting cellulose derived from
herbaceous crops and grasses into fermentable sugars to be
converted into industrial chemicals;
- developing molecular
ecology techniques to prospect for novel industrial enzymes
and microorganisms from extreme environments;
- engineering plants to
effectively produce important industrial enzymes and
industrial compounds;
- applying nanofabrication
and single-molecule confinement methods to investigate
molecular mechanisms of important industrial enzymes;
- enhancing ethanol
tolerance and production in yeast through understanding and
manipulating membrane restructuring;
- converting dairy
manure-derived biogas from anaerobic digestion to produce
electricity, hydrogen and heat on dairy farms;
- utilizing used vegetable
oil from restaurants to replace diesel fuel for vehicles;
- investigating the
technical and economic constraints of using digester and
landfill gases to operate fuel cells;
- developing environmentally
friendly bioherbicides to control plant-pathogenic bacteria
and fungi;
- screening molecules for
novel compounds in diverse organisms for their genetic
capacity to synthesize some important families of natural
products, such as antibiotics and insecticides;
- developing microbial
biopesticides through combined approaches of genetic
engineering, fermentation optimization and process
engineering; and
- testing the burning of
grass pellets as a biofuel.
Many Cornell graduate students
are involved in carrying out these research activities through
the U.S. Department of Agriculture Multidisciplinary Graduate
and Education Training Program for bio-based industries.
By
Susan S. Lang |