Integrating food, feed and fuels
Senior Associate Dean Joe Colletti and Wendy Wintersteen, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, champions of the New Century Farm.
Iowa State University's New Century Farm is no longer just an idea on paper. At this writing, ground has been broken, earth moved and footings placed.
Bioenergy candidate crops are in the ground already on this 1,000-acre farm due west of Ames, and research on biomass harvesting, transportation, storage and processing can begin in 2009 with the completion of the first buildings. These include the "hanger," where harvesting equipment can be put through its paces year-round and a 23,000-square-foot bioprocessing facility.
Informally called "the kitchen," the bioprocessing facility will accommodate scalable pilot-plant trains of biochemical and thermochemical conversion technologies for making biofuels and industrial chemicals. In addition, scientifically workable amounts of commercially important value-added, non-petroleum-based compounds and biobased products will be captured throughout these processes, so their market potential can be evaluated.
This is not the same old snapshot of biofuel breadth--corn to motor fuel. "Here we will further the science of biofuels and contribute to the economic development of Iowa," says Lawrence Johnson, director of the Center for Crops Utilization Research (CCUR) and professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition. "This facility represents a change in mindset," where all eyes are upon sustainability. "Petroleum will never be sustainable, but biofuels have the potential, if we do it the right way."
The Farm will accommodate academic research projects and corporate ventures, addressing food and fuel strategies through integrating production with processing and utilization. Johnson's CCUR staff is working to design a plant management system and securing equipment to create a flexible and user-friendly facility that provides for proprietary projects, joint partnerships with Iowa State faculty, start-ups and typical grant contract work.
Here plant sciences and industrial use interface. The New Century Farm is where "basic science linked to use-inspired discovery can flourish," says Joe Colletti, senior associate dean for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
Sustainability for profit demands a broad suite of crops creating opportunities for plant scientists to identify new varieties suitable for optimal lignocellulosic ethanol conversion and full-season cropping systems.
A lot of universities focus on discovery. But "ISU is also applying the land-grant principals very well," says Johnson, "by providing the means to take discoveries down the long path to commercialization."
