Des Moines Register
04-11-07
ISU receives 8-year grant for biofuels research
ConocoPhillips' money will finance studies, but won't pay for a new center.
By LISA ROSSI
REGISTER AMES BUREAU
Ames, Ia. - Multinational energy company ConocoPhillips of Houston announced
an eight-year, $22.5 million research grant to Iowa State University to study how
to develop biorenewable fuels.
The announcement comes more than two months after the university learned it
missed a $500 million renewable-biofuels research facility being financed by BP,
the giant petroleum company. Biorenewable fuels are those made from organic
materials, as opposed to wind and solar energy sources.
Robert Brown, director of ISU's Office of Biorenewables Programs, said ISU
had sought grants from ConocoPhillips and BP. ISU missed a $500 million
renewable-biofuels research facility being financed by BP, which gave the grant
to the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign.
The ConocoPhillips grant will pay for research projects relating to biofuels, but it
won't pay for a central facility where work could take place, researchers said.
Research on the corporate grant will happen at several locations on the campus,
Brown said.
The ConocoPhillips grant will pay for studying how to transport biomass for
biofuels and how to maximize the benefits of biofuel development for rural
communities while minimizing damage to the environment, Brown said.
ISU beat out about a half-dozen schools vying to be the anchor research
program of ConocoPhillips, said Ryan Lance, ConocoPhillips' senior vice
president for technology. Lance declined to specify the other schools.
"We think Iowa State is ahead of the game," Lance said.
"(ISU is) clearly leading the industry."
ConocoPhillips ranks third, behind Exxon Mobil and Chevron, among the socalled integrated energy companies that have both production and refining and
retail operations. The company earned $15.5 billion in 2006.
ISU and state leaders lauded the grant as being a part of a larger plan to make
Iowa a world leader in the emerging bioeconomy.
"We'll have to work hard to achieve it, because there is tremendous competition
and so much at stake," said ISU President Gregory Geoffroy, who took
advantage of the announcement Tuesday to lobby for a $32 million appropriation
from the Iowa Legislature to build and staff a building for biorenewables research
at ISU.
"There is so much more we could do if we have professors working in key areas,"
Geoffroy said, explaining that part of the proposal to the Legislature involves a
request to pay for 10 new faculty members to study biorenewable energy.
The ConocoPhillips grant will add 10 faculty members to ISU's Office of
Biorenewables Programs, which currently includes 145 faculty members with ties
to 18 academic departments and 19 research centers across the campus.
Those researchers have attracted more than $57 million in sponsored research
money since 2002, a total that does not include the grant from ConocoPhillips.
The grant could also include research into plant science by creating crops that
have biomass characteristics that make it easier to convert into biofuels, he said.
Reporter Lisa Rossi can be reached at (515) 232-2383 or lrossi@dmreg.com