Des Moines Register
09-03-06
Doak: Switch to biobased fuels heralds big changes for farming, daily life
Dick Doak
"Biomass" sounds like an exotic substance on which to build an energy
revolution, but it's not as weird as it sounds.
It's a sort of back-to-the-future deal.
For tens of thousands of years, mankind depended on biomass - wood and
buffalo chips - for fuel.
People used it to cook and to keep warm. Later, at the dawn of civilization, they
used charcoal made from wood to forge metals.
Later still, people turned to coal, and the age of steam was born, sparking the
industrial revolution.
Then came the switch to petroleum, which powered the age of flight and the
personal freedom that came with the internal combustion engine.
Notice that with each change of fuel, people experienced big changes in how
they lived and worked.
We probably don't appreciate yet how much our lives are going to change again
as the petroleum age fades away and we make the transition to the next fuel biomass and other renewable sources such as wind and solar energy.
A glimmer of the change was on display last week at Iowa State University
during the annual Biobased Industry Outlook Conference: Growing the
Bioeconomy. This conference is largely attended by practical people who have
started or are considering starting businesses that use biomass as feedstock or a
biological process in production. Attendance at the conference has tripled in
three years.
The biggest industrial users of biomass in Iowa are the ethanol and biodiesel
industries, but those are just the beginning.
The theme of this year's conference was "Reimagining Agriculture for National
Energy Security." There's little doubt that agriculture will be the first to feel big
changes.
It was noted at the conference that dedicated energy crops, such as switchgrass
grown specifically as a fuel feedstock, will likely become the third-largest crop in
America.
That alone - the addition of a major new income stream in farming - would be
enough to make a huge difference in rural America.
Change will also include whole new types of crops, new cropping systems, new
machinery and new techniques for harvesting, storing and transporting vast
quantities of biomass. All of those things imply more economic opportunity in
rural Iowa.
Off the farm, the production of biofuels - ethanol and biodiesel now and probably
others in the future - will become a major industry. Just as intriguing is what
might be done with the byproducts of biofuel production. These include distillers
grain, glycerol and lignin that might become feedstocks in their own right for a
chemical industry.
The chemistry of biomass isn't all that different from the chemistry of petroleum.
They both contain molecules of carbon and hydrogen that clever chemists can
manipulate to make everything from plastics to paint.
The Iowa landscape could become dotted with industrial installations that make
all kinds of useful products in addition to fuel.
A preview might be seen in Eddyville, a once sleepy little town on the Des
Moines River that now hums with the activity of industries that process biomass
(corn) harvested within a 100-mile radius. Cargill, two Ajinomoto operations and
Wacker Chemical Corp. form a bioprocessing cluster where a wide variety of
chemicals and products are made. In addition to ethanol, they include highfructose corn syrup, dextrose, citric acid, lysine, corn oil, monosodium glutamate,
vitamin E, glucosamine and the chemical used in fabric softener.
Along with the industry comes a need for trained workers. Indian Hills Community
College, in partnership with the industries, has established a bioprocess training
center in Eddyville to help give workers the right skills.
Which suggests another change the arrival of the bioeconomy will bring: the
need for much more science education in Iowa schools and the production of
more chemists and chemical engineers, not to mention all the new plant
scientists and agricultural engineers that will be needed on the feedstock end of
things.
As for the changes in daily life that the next energy revolution will bring, no one
can predict. But there will be change, just as there was in the past when the
energy paradigm changed.
Iowa's challenge is to make it change for the better.
RICHARD DOAK is senior editorial columnist. He can be reached at (515) 2848542 or ddoak@dmreg.com.