Office of the president

Des Moines Rotary remarks

Gregory L. Geoffroy, President
Thursday, Feb. 22, 2007

Good afternoon! It's great to be visiting you again, and to have this opportunity to update you on Iowa State University.

There is so much I could tell you. I could talk about the excellence of our education programs and the success of our students; how we enroll more graduates from Iowa's high schools and more transfer students from Iowa's community colleges than any other university in Iowa. I could talk about so many of the exciting areas of research where we are world leaders-in the animal sciences, in the plant sciences, in the materials sciences and engineering, in the computer and information sciences, and in many other areas. I could talk about Cyclone athletics, and the very big vision that our Athletics Director has for our athletics program.

Renewable fuel production

But I don't want to talk about any of those. Instead, I want to talk about a topic that is extremely important to Iowa and our nation, and that's biorenewables, and especially producing renewable fuels from plants.

The "take home" message that I want to leave you with today, and the good news for Iowa, is that this is an area where Iowa State is among the very best universities in the world, and where we are focusing so much of our current work.

I probably don't have to tell you that this is an extremely important and very exciting area, with something in the news nearly every day, from President Bush proposing a huge increase in our nation's use of renewable fuels and backed by large federal funding for research, to the explosive growth in the biofuels industry here in Iowa.

Reducing dependence on foreign oil

Ultimately, the primary reason for the interest in renewable fuels is national security-reducing our nation's dependence on imports of foreign oil. So many of the products we use every day come from petroleum, especially our transportation fuels. But petroleum is NOT renewable. It's a finite resource, and easily extracted oil will be exhausted this century. Oil is also associated with many international tensions and potential supply disruptions, and the global competition for oil is growing fast, especially from China and India.

Think about it. It is inevitable that in this century the world is going to run out of the cheap oil from which we derive all of our transportation fuels. What will happen-to the way we live and work, and to our nation, if we haven't by then developed alternate sources of energy, of transportation fuels and the many other products that we now get from petroleum? The long-term future will surely require that we become much more efficient in the use of energy, and we will have to depend much more on energy generated from wind, nuclear and solar.

But there is now a very strong consensus that a big part of the solution will come from renewable fuels produced from plants. The first step in this direction has been to replace some of the gasoline that we use with bioethanol-the 10% ethanol blends that most gas stations sell here in the Midwest, and some of our diesel fuels with biodiesel, which is produced mostly from soybeans. The bioethanol industry is by far the largest, and here in the U.S. the source of that bioethanol is corn, because we can grow corn in huge quantities and because it contains lots of carbohydrates that can be easily broken down into sugars that are then easy to ferment, like the centuries old process of making moonshine from corn.

Iowa--an industry leader

Iowa is the national leader in producing ethanol from corn, with more than twice as many bioethanol plants as any other state. It's a leadership position that we have because Iowa is the best place to grow corn, and because of the entrepreneurship of so many Iowa farmers, who were early movers in forming partnerships to build these plants.

But Iowa cannot rest on its laurels, because this is only the first phase of the evolution of biofuels, and a much bigger phase is coming, one that will involve the production of biofuels from cellulose-from plant fibers-or what we generally refer to as biomass, like corn stover, switchgrass and even wood chips.

The biofuels industry will have to advance quickly to this next stage, because our nation simply cannot grow enough corn to produce enough bioethanol from the grain to make much of a dent in our import of foreign oil. But a shift to producing biofuels from all sorts of cellulosic biomass does have that potential, and would allow much greater use of fuels like E-85--the blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

The technology to efficiently convert biomass into biofuels is still being developed, and it requires much more research. But it's coming, and probably in the next 10 years or so. And, of course, Iowa should strive to be a leader in the production of biofuels from biomass, just as we are in producing ethanol from corn. But that will take sound policies and good investments, because biomass can be produced in lots of places in our country, and other states are working hard to surpass Iowa's current leadership.

Biorenewables at Iowa State University

But in addition to its great land, Iowa has another asset that can help ensure Iowa's strong leadership in the biofuels future, and that's the great strength we have in biorenewables at Iowa State University. We are widely recognized as one of the strongest universities in the world in biorenewables, in the use of renewable plant materials to produce fuels, energy and a variety of bio-based chemicals and materials.

The development of those strengths began many years ago, with a huge surge 10 years ago when we started strengthening our programs in the plant sciences and created the Plant Sciences Institute with a special appropriations from the Iowa legislature. It was used to expand our programs, hire new researchers and better position Iowa to be the true world leader in plant biotechnology.

Then five years ago, we identified several high impact areas where we could truly be the best in the world, and one of those was the area of biorenewables. We began investing in new faculty appointments and new research directions in biorenewables and renewable fuels to put us in a very strong leadership position, well ahead of the current surge of interest. And today, Iowa State is now truly among the very best in this incredibly exciting area. We probably have more experts in more areas, including science, agriculture, engineering, economics, rural sociology and other relevant areas, than any other university anywhere.

Four years ago, we created the world's first graduate degree program in Biorenewable Resources, for students wanting to pursue MS and PhD degrees, and we're in the early stages of developing an undergraduate program in biorenewables, which we believe will be hugely popular.

Our aim is to help Iowa be the world center for renewable fuels and biobased products, with Iowa State helping make that possible through our educational programs, and especially through our cutting-edge research.

This is a very strong focus for Iowa State University and for me personally. And it's an area where the state of Iowa and Iowa State University can work together, arm-in-arm, to establish both as national leaders. That's why we organized the Call to Action Summit on renewable fuels last November on our campus. It was a huge success, with 425 attendees, and a report filled with recommendations for action.

Renewable fuels research

I'd like to be able to describe to you everything we are doing in renewable fuels research, but it would take far too long. So let me give you just a taste, and I'll start with our work to improve the current bioethanol and biodiesel processes.

First, we are using conventional plant breeding techniques to develop new lines of corn specifically designed to maximize ethanol yield, and varieties of soybeans specifically tailored for the biodiesel industry, to yield far more oil than conventional soybeans.

Our faculty are also leading the national effort to sequence the full corn genome, which will yield knowledge about the function of all the corn genes and how to modify them to produce lines of corn that are optimized in every way possible for yield and bioethanol production.

Our engineers are working to improve the overall fermentation process that produces ethanol, for example, by using ultrasound to break corn kernels down into much finer particles prior to starting the fermentation. It speeds up the fermentation and increases ethanol yield by as much as 30% compared to dry milling methods.

Another team of researchers, working in partnership with West Central Coop in Ralston, Iowa, have developed a new catalyst for biodiesel production that is much more efficient and less costly than catalysts now used. And as a bonus, it can be used on other oils, including animal fats and waste fats and oils like those that come out of restaurants. Those faculty actually started a small business to produce these catalysts for local biodiesel refineries. Those same professors are working on ways to convert the byproducts coming out of a biodiesel plant into value-added products, such as antifreeze.

And other faculty across the university are working on the various economic, environmental, transportation and rural sociology issues associated with the current growth of the biofuels industry.

But remember, the future must involve the production of biofuels from cellulosic biomass, and we have a number of faculty working to get us there as quickly as possible. For example, we have research teams studying crops like switchgrass, sorghum and triticale-and evaluating their potential to produce large amounts of biomass, and how to optimize their growing conditions and yield. Other faculty are working on developing new lines of corn that produce large amounts of stover in addition to grain, and with cellulosic fibers that are much easier to ferment.

In other projects, researchers are evaluating how much corn stover can actually be removed from fields without damaging the soil quality and fertility, and evaluating the impact on water quality from several different kind of biomass scenarios. Our agricultural engineers are developing harvesting machinery that will simultaneously collect corn grain and corn stover, with the ability to control the amount of stover left behind. Other scientists are researching completely new chemical and fermentation processes for breaking down cellulosic fibers into fermentable sugars.

Our engineers are evaluating very promising thermal processes for biomass conversion. For example, Robert Brown, one of our most prominent biorenewables experts, and his research team discovered ways to quickly heat biomass and convert it into an oil that can then be transported to refineries where it can be converted into a variety of fuels and chemicals. Companies like BP, Conoco-Phillips, Chevron and Broin are coming to us and wanting to partner on that research.

And finally, we are in the planning stages for a 1000 acre New Century Farm, which will be simultaneously a research and demonstration farm for production of biomass from a variety of crops, and for developing and demonstrating harvesting, storage and processing techniques for various kinds of biomass, and with small-scale pilot plants to evaluate various ways to convert the biomass into fuels.

There is a huge amount of excitement in renewable fuels, and tremendous opportunities will be coming to us from all quarters-from industry, the federal government, commodity groups, and private donors and investors. Iowa State is as well positioned as any institution in the world to take advantage of all of these opportunities, and we intend to do so!

I believe that Iowa is on the cusp of one of the biggest changes in its history, and we need to get ready for it. This drive to renewable fuels will profoundly change Iowa, with lots of challenges and opportunities, and a lot of unknowns. But the change will be huge, and this is the time that Iowa needs the help of its land-grant university-Iowa State University-more than ever. We are ready, and well-positioned to respond.

Imagine the future with Iowa as the epicenter of the world in renewable fuels, with Iowa State supporting that through our global leadership in research and education in biorenewable resources! That's what we are working toward.

I like to say that we are going to do for cellulose what George Washington Carver did for the peanut. But it won't be for peanuts!