Minnesota State University Reporter

Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: National and World News

Media Credit: poweralternatives.com Ethanol production from corn is both costly and ineffective in replacing gasoline. For this reason, researchers at MSU were granted $500,000 to research other biomass alternatives such as cattails and algae.

The U.S. Department of Energy has granted $500,000 to Minnesota State to fund renewable energy projects that explore increasing efficiency of energy sources.

According to James Rife, a biochemistry professor, the goal is to diminish two issues with one solution. One is to reduce the dependence on petroleum for gasoline and the other is to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere which leads to global warming. 

"We are examining using cattails as a biomass source to convert into ethanol," said biological sciences professor Gregg Marg. "Wetlands are extremely productive of biomass, particularly cattails, and this could lead to re-establishing wetlands across the state."

According to John Frey, dean of the College of Science, Engineering and Technology, the project is also looking into algae as a source of fuel.  There is a growing interest in algae as a fuel source because it can sometimes produce up to 50 percent oil.

Farmers are encouraged to return some of their farmland to wetland to produce a cattail crop, Rife said.

According to Marg, having more wetlands to produce these types of plants will be beneficial not only for the fuel source, but also for reducing the amount of pollution in the lakes and rivers and to revitalize the groundwater. A number of labs are working on converting plants into ethanol as a fuel source but no one has researched wetland plants yet. 

He added that although ethanol is usually connected to corn in the minds of many, the entire U.S. crop of corn last year produced enough ethanol to cover only about 15 percent of the gasoline used. "We need the corn for other uses besides ethanol, so we need to find other materials to convert into ethanol," he said.

In addition, the ethanol industry has caused the cost of corn to rise to the highest its ever been, said Rife.

He added the price of soybeans has also sky rocketed because the soil used for soybean crops is used for corn instead to meet the demands. 

"We are not going to be able to switch from petroleum to corn-based ethanol without having some impact on food prices," Rife said

The idea of using cattails as a renewable energy resource is a recycling process, Rife said. The cattails will produce carbon dioxide when used as energy but the cattail crop will absorb that carbon. 

He said last semester the researchers were able to produce ethanol from cattails.

"Not a whole lot, but some," he said. "This new grant allows us to optimize the cattail biomass to ethanol."

Rife said that by summer they should be able to present cattails as a practical alternative.

According to Frey, this is the second grant received. The first was received two years ago. Marg said this initial grant was used to purchase equipment needed for experimentation and since then, a few experiments have been conducted.  The second grant is a continuation of the work started in the last two years. 

These grants are awarded through Congress after it decides which matters are most in need of funding and cover most pressing issues. 

"We feel our potential for delivery in renewable energy is significant," Frey said. "I would like to thank our legislators, Congressman Tim Walz and Senators Amy Klobuchar and Norm Coleman because they all supported it."

Frey said the hope is to end up with $2.5 million to fund the project as Congress votes every two years to award the $500,000 increments.

"These dollars are important because without this money we wouldn't be able to participate in finding solutions to our energy problem," Frey said. "The dollars are not just an investment in academic institutions but really an interest for renewable energy for southern Minnesota, which has rich crop resources and all the potential for producing renewable energy."

He added, MSU is working in conjunction with Minnesota West Community and Technical College forming the Minnesota Center for Renewable Energy. 

"It brings expertise together to focus on a problem," he said. 

Minnesota West focuses on the education programs that will train employees of ethanol and wind energy plants while MSU focuses on the research aspect of the program. 

"There are at least a dozen possible processes for treating the biomass to produce ethanol.  We have only examined one so far and only at an elementary level," Marg said. "We will be examining more of these processes to determine which process gives the best ethanol production using cattails as the biomass source."


Chelsey Schrupp is a Reporter staff writer