Des Moines Register
09-01-06
Work hard to land BP biosciences center
REGISTER EDITORIAL BOARD
BP is the third-largest company in the world and perhaps the most forwardlooking of the energy giants. If it picks Ames as the location for its proposed $500
million Energy Biosciences Institute, it will open exciting prospects for Iowa.
If the company chooses some other location, it will be a sad confirmation that
Iowa is not investing enough in its universities and in the basic science of the
energy revolution.
Make no mistake, an energy revolution is coming — one in which organic
material at least partially replaces petroleum as the feedstock for the production
of fuels and chemicals.
Iowa has an abundance of organic material and the best farmers in the world.
What it needs to complement its agricultural expertise is undisputed world
leadership in the science of converting crops and crop residues into fuels and
other useful products.
Just as high-tech industries grew up around universities renowned for their
research in information technology, so will bio-industries concentrate in the states
that have the best research in bio-conversions.
Despite cutbacks in state support of universities in recent years, Iowa State
University has made energy research a high priority. It has established
programs such as the Bioeconomy Initiative, which takes an interdisciplinary
approach, bringing together scientists and engineers from diverse fields to do
joint research.
Besides ISU's keen interest in the science of the energy revolution, Ames is also
home to a U.S. Department of Energy facility. That raises the possibility of a
state, federal and private-sector collaboration if BP decides the Ames area is the
right location for its institute.
Will it be enough?
Jim Breson, BP's project manager for the institute, is an ISU graduate. He told
the annual Biobased Industry Outlook Conference in Ames this week that a
select few universities, including ISU, will be invited to submit proposals. The
competition is likely to include famous research universities such as MIT and
California schools that are well known for agricultural research and better funded
than Iowa universities.
BP intends to spend $500 million over the next 10 years at the institute, which
will try to develop new biofuel components, devise new technologies for
converting organic matter to biofuels and develop plant species that produce
higher yields of energy and be grown on land not suitable for food production.
Breson told the conference that bioscience as it relates to energy is in its infancy,
and an exciting future lies ahead. He said biology will be to this century what
chemistry was in the last century — the science that generates surprises and
progress.
Iowa can be a major center of that progress and the prosperity that comes with it
if the state invests enough in bioresearch and general excellence at its
universities.
And if the BP institute goes elsewhere, the state should nevertheless embrace
the concept and create something very much like it on our own.