Genovese Board Meeting Report on Biofuel Progress

[David Dewher]

BioFuels Report – July 2007
David Dewher

I’ve done a little research into where the big oil companies are making their investments on the university level.  I have it here in this printed one page synopsis, but I’ll give you some of what I’ve found out over the past month.    passes out the single spaced page organized into neat sections detailing different oil companies and their funding of research at different universities most of which are in the United States…

Chevron and the Texas A&M Agriculture and Engineering BioEnergy Alliance announced a little over a month ago, May 29, 2007, that they have entered into a strategic research agreement to accelerate the production and conversion of crops for manufacturing ethanol and other biofuels from cellulose.

Chevron Technology Ventures is to support research initiatives over a four-year period through the Texas A&M BioEnergy Alliance, a formal partnership combining the collective strengths of The Texas A&M university system's two research agencies in agriculture and engineering: the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station (TAES) and the Texas Engineering Experiment Station (TEES).

Texas A&M is known for progressive biofuel research.  For instance, Texas A&M BioEnergy Alliance partners in agriculture have developed high-yield cellulosic energy crops that can produce significantly more biomass per acre than most alternatives.

According to Dr. Elsa Murano, vice chancellor and dean of Texas A&M Agriculture and Life Sciences, they have been able to capitalize on decades of existing research into sorghum, sugarcane, forage and oil-based cropping systems, which should provide them with premier, dedicated feedstocks for biofuels and renewable energy that are sustainable within existing agricultural production systems.

As you can see on your synopsis under the heading of Chevron, I was able to learn that since the forming of the Chevron biofuels business unit in May 2006, the company has already made agreements with the following universities, $12M to Georgia Tech, $25M to the University of California at Davis, and an identified amount to the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels, which is a consortium of NREL, three Colorado universities, and other private companies.  This is in addition to their internal R&D budgets for biofuel research which obviously isn’t public information.

seeing some questioning looks, says… Sorry, the NREL is the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.  It is a laboratory of the US Department of Energy.  They have their own website, http://www.nrel.gov/biomass/

Chevron also unveiled a new Biodiesel plant in Galveston, Texas last month. At 20 million gallons per year, with a capability to grow to 110 million, the plant is one of the first large scale soybean-based biodiesel production facilities in North America. Chevron owns 22 percent of the plant.

Chevron certainly isn’t alone in their investments.  ExxonMobile has given Stanford $100M, and has even run advertisements touting its investment.

Turns out we’re not the only ones joining this bandwagon, and we probably aren’t as far ahead of the curve as we thought.  That’s not bad news.  It means that we can see a return on our investments sooner rather than later.  It also means we need more information than we can get by reading webpages.

Of specifics for us, I think we should be talking with Larry Walker at Cornell.  Cornell University is one of five Sun Grant Centers of Excellence -- regional hubs already at the forefront of researching the use of plant biomass in energy and chemical production -- and is in an excellent position to advance its leadership role in these areas.

Larry Walker, professor of biological and environmental engineering, is director of the Northeast Sun Grant Institute of Excellence, based at Cornell, which serves 14 states and the District of Columbia, from Maine to Maryland to Michigan.

I’ve arranged to meet with Professor Walker a week from Thursday, that’s July the 12th.  I should have more information by our next board meeting.

[David Dewher]

Board Meeting August 6, 2007
Update on Biofuel Research
David Dewher
Meeting with Professor Larry Walker from Cornell University

The following were questions and answers from my talk with Larry Walker at Cornell last month.

Q: How do you define biofuels?
A: Biofuels are fuels that are produced from plant materials, such as corn or grasses, and organic wastes, such as animal wastes.

Q: What are the main sources of biofuels, and what's the process for turning them into usable energy sources?
A: Currently, ethanol produced from corn in the United States is the largest renewable energy source surpassing hydroelectric power. Recently, there has been a focus on converting biomass to liquid fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, and to such gaseous fuels as hydrogen and methane. Traditionally, heat production from the combustion of wood and crop residues represents approximately 10 percent of the global energy usage.

Q: President Bush mentioned switchgrass in his State of the Union speech. What is it, why is it a viable biofuel source and how is it turned into fuel?
A: Switchgrass is a tall native perennial grass widely distributed across the country. It has approximately the same energy content as wood and approximately two-thirds that of coal. Thus, direct combustion of switchgrass is one option for liberating the energy content of switchgrass and using it as a fuel.

Q: How are Cornell researchers examining switchgrass?
A: One way of extracting energy from switchgrass is to make pellets from it and burn it, which is the approach that Jerry Cherney, professor of crops and soil science, and his colleagues at Cornell are taking.

Another group of Cornell researchers is interested in producing low-cost sugars from switchgrass that can be fermented to ethanol and other valuable chemicals. They are working on pretreating switchgrass to make it more susceptible to enzymatic conversion to sugars for subsequent fermentation to ethanol and industrial chemicals. I'm working on this with Jim Gossett, who's taking the lead, and Deborah Sills, both in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, as well as molecular biologist David Wilson.

Q: What is Cornell's role in biofuels research?
A: When I started at Cornell in the early 1980s, William Jewell of my department was doing some exciting biomass research on anaerobic digestion for methane production, and Robert Finn, chemical engineering, was working on fermentation technology.

Realizing that such global trends as energy security and climate change were driving renewed interest in biofuels, a group of approximately 20 Cornell professors came together in 2000 to explore some of the research and education opportunities associated with this renewed interest. We called ourselves the "Sustainable Agriculturally-based Bio-Industry Cluster" [SABBIC]. This became the core group that developed a successful grant application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a multidisciplinary graduate, education and training program on sustainable biobased industries. Also, SABBIC has been core to developing the vision and defining the activities for our Sun Grant Initiative.

Q: President Bush's recent budget proposal includes the "Advanced Energy Initiative," which looks to increase funding for renewable technologies, such as biofuels, solar energy and hydrogen power along with "clean coal" and nuclear power. How do you see this shift in funding impacting biofuels research and application?
A: It is good to see that President Bush recognizes that the country must address its dependency on foreign oil and that he realizes that biofuels are part of the answer. The challenge will be directing significant federal dollars to biofuels and other renewable energy research and development activities at a time of a major federal budget deficit and other budget priorities. Many of my biofuels colleagues around the country and I believe that we need a renewable energy initiative that is on par with the Manhattan Project to address the nation's energy and economic security. It will take leadership from the president and Congress to make this happen.

Q: In light of this new push for renewable energy by the federal government, what role do you see for Cornell as a Sun Grant Center of Excellence?
A: Cornell and the Northeast Sun Grant Institute of Excellence can play a major role in biofuels research and development. We have many of the scientific and engineering fields to address the agricultural and industrial biotechnology challenges and opportunities.

In addition, we have environmental and social scientists across campus to help us explore how these biofuels should be deployed to support economic and human development. Given the strong biological science and engineering capacity here at Cornell, I would hope that our institute will play a leading role in agricultural and industrial biotechnology and in sustainable integrated systems/industrial ecologies.

Q: At the state level, New York Gov. George E. Pataki said he will "propose a plan to jump-start a new era of statewide availability and use of renewable fuels -- ensuring that more of our energy dollars stay right here in New York." Is there work being done at Cornell that already ties into the governor's and president's visions?
A: Gov. Pataki's message regarding the future of biofuels in New York state puts the country on notice that New York has an interest in being a major player in biofuels technical and economic development. Too often the national biofuels initiative is portrayed as a Midwest farm subsidies program as opposed to an initiative that all parts of the country can participate in. Gov. Pataki also is sending a message that New York is serious enough about this leadership role to invest in biofuels research and development. A third message is that the biofuels initiative is creating economic opportunities for rural New York. All biomass is local. Finally, Gov. Pataki realizes that informed tax and economic development policies can stimulate the development of a new industry. Despite this message it will take a partnership between the governor and the legislative bodies to jump-start the biofuels initiative in New York state.

__________________________________________________________________________________

I have asked Diego Farina to approve a $1Million grant to Cornell to put us "in the know" on this research.  I would like Genovese Enterprises to be there when a spin-off corporation is formed to start building the industry that the Govenor spoke about providing tax incentives for.  We can get in on the ground floor of this thing.  As I told Diego at the Board Meeting tonight... they quit makin' dinosaurs a while back.  The future is in renewable energy.