Imagine an Iowa where all the nearly $3 billion spent each year to buy electricity stays right here in the state, recirculating, instead of leaving the state to purchase the coal and natural gas on which most Iowa generating stations operate.

Imagine an Iowa in which the profits from 6.7 million gallons of motor fuel burned every day are reinvested here instead of enriching sheiks and dictators in faraway lands.

Imagine an Iowa where whole new industries develop, as biomass from crops displaces petroleum as the feedstock for producing fuel, plastics and chemicals.

Most exciting of all, imagine an Iowa that is an acknowledged leader in the technologies of turning plants into products and converting wind into storable energy.

Iowa could be transformed — more prosperous, more economically diverse, more vital.

As petroleum hits $70 per barrel and the search intensifies for fossil-fuel replacements, the prospect moves beyond the hypothetical and becomes a real possibility.

But it won’t happen automatically. Being first in ethanol production and third in wind-generated electricity, Iowa is an early leader in renewable energy. That’s doesn’t guarantee success in the end.

Ethanol just the start
A race is shaping up among states, and Iowa doesn’t appear ready to go the distance.

The Legislature’s signature action on energy this year was to sweeten the subsidies for ethanol in hopes of boosting consumption of the corn-based fuel.

However worthy that may be, it is an investment in the present, not the future. Ethanol from corn is today’s technology, not necessarily tomorrow’s. It is the beginning, not the end of the search for alternatives.

Iowa has vast potential in at least two renewable energy sources — wind and biomass — but the exact technologies to best exploit them haven’t been developed. Much research and experimentation is required. That is where Iowa should focus if it wants to stay a leader in renewable energy.

When the Register asked several experts what Iowa should do to capitalize on its energy potential, the almost unanimous answer was: Invest more in research. Raise salaries and build more labs to recruit and retain the best university researchers. Provide more seed money to obtain federal research grants.

It is from research that the successful technologies will emerge, and the states that do the most will reap the most benefits.

Basic research critical
Iowa hasn’t been entirely resting on its laurels. It has identified the biosciences as one of its key areas for economic growth and has developed a plan. The state has assembled a government-academic-industry alliance to commercialize discoveries.

The Grow Iowa Values Fund includes some money for the state universities.

But these efforts came after years of cuts to the universities — a downtrend that only recently began to be reversed. The state’s efforts might be criticized for putting the cart before the horse by aiming at commercialization without first making sufficient investment in underlying research.

Michigan recently committed $2 billion for research and innovation, and established a state office of bio-based technologies. At least 17 other states have established programs to promote research and commercialization of biorenewable resources.

Action needed now
The governor and legislative leaders should ask the Iowa Board of Regents what it would take to make Iowa the epicenter of university research on renewable energy. Then the Legislature should provide it no later than the 2007 session.

Given the state’s head start, Iowa might not need to spend as much as other states to maintain our lead in renewable expertise. But maintain our lead we must.

Why? Consider the example of Texas and oil. Texas became the world center of petroleum technology. It has the best experts on everything from drilling to putting out oilfield fires. Actual oil production in Texas peaked years ago, but whenever anyone in the world wants to buy some oil technology or expertise, they still turn to Texans.

Iowa’s goal should be to become the place the world comes for renewable energy technology.

The opportunity is too great to forgo by failing to invest enough in university research.

Panel of experts discusses the issue

The Register invited university faculty with expertise in science, engineering, economics and research to discuss Iowa’s role in developing renewable fuels and other biobased projects.

DR. ROBERT C. BROWN, Iowa State University, professor of chemical engineering, director of the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies

JOHN MIRANOWSKI, Iowa State University, professor of economics

VITALIJ PECHARSKY, Iowa State University, professor of materials science and engineering (conducts research focused on storing hydrogen)

MEREDITH HAY, University of Iowa, vice president for research, professor of physiology and biophysics, professor of psychology

WILLIAM STIGLIANI, University of Northern Iowa, professor of chemistry, director of the Center for Energy & Environmental Education
(Participated in energy roundtable via telephone)

Here are excerpts.

Register: Is the world coming to the end of the age of oil, or is that scenario overblown?

Brown: We have reached the point where the demand for oil is going to have more effect than the supply of oil. China and India are going to increase their use of petroleum, and we’re going to have to live with that. We need to prepare for the day we have to find alternatives.

William Stigliani, University of Northern Iowa: The Exxon and BP Web sites gave projections for (energy) demand between 2005 and 2030, and they showed global demand will increase about 60 percent over that time. And most of that is going to be through oil and gas and coal. The U.S. Department of Energy showed the U.S. growth about half as much as the global growth, and most of that comes from coal. Ethanol will play a very minor role, according to the scenario.

Miranowski: My guess is that if we stay in the $60- to-$ 65-a-barrel crude-oil price, those demands are going to adjust significantly. You can afford to recover a lot more reserves when the price is $60 a barrel rather than $35 or $40. I don’t see that we are going to be running out of oil. We are going to continue to see higher prices, and that should increase supplies of fossil fuels. What really has a big bearing on this is the uncertainty and instability among our international suppliers. We could have a lot more oil on the market and lower crude prices if there was stability in the Middle East and Venezuela. One of the big pluses of higher crude-oil prices is that it provides big incentives to bring on biofuels. We don’t have the political fortitude to pursue conservation strategies. The biggest conservation strategy we have are high crude prices. As people shift to driving flex-fuel vehicles, hybrid vehicles, we are going to see that growth we’re predicting of 30 to 60 percent not occurring.

Register: How much conservation could we reasonably squeeze out?
Brown: If you drive an SUV, what kind of mileage are you getting? Less than 20 miles per gallon. If you drive a Prius, you’re getting something like 50. So if everybody made that shift, we would cut our energy use in half. We won’t get there, but we could do a much more incremental improvement. We could combine a diesel engine with a hybrid and get even better performance.

Stigliani: According to the Exxon Web site, the forecast for North America demand for gasoline in 2030 will be about the same as it is for 2000, due to efficiencies and the growth in the number of hybrids on the road. I think we can do better than just the hybrid — 200 miles to the gallon is possible with a combination of much lighter-weight cars, improved aerodynamics. That would take a lot of political will to get such a car on the market.

Register: Where do Iowa’s production of ethanol, biodiesel and wind fit into the entire energy picture?

Brown: What are we trying to achieve? Is it reduced greenhouse-gas emission? Is it energy independence? Is it cheaper gasoline? Once we decide what those issues are, then we can start talking about which technology makes most sense. Unfortunately, in the political climate, often the approach is: This is the way we want to do it. This is the technology that we want to back.

Pecharsky: The key to energy independence and the key for Iowa to succeed as an energy supplier is balance, in addition to conservation. It’s an excellent thing that in addition to gasoline we’re beginning to pay attention to ethanol. I went to Brazil, and the majority of cars there are driving ethanol. But they still have gasoline, too.

Brown: Iowa could produce many times its annual requirements for electricity through wind — in excess of five times. That is an opportunity to become an exporter of electric energy. Why isn’t that done? It can’t be dispatched at will. If the wind stops, you are out of luck.

Register: How far out are we in figuring out how to store energy from wind?

Pecharsky: Quite a ways out. One of the best ways to store wind energy is hydrogen. The issue is how do you store the hydrogen? Hydrogen is an excellent energy carrier. Once you produce it, you can store it for a day, a month, a year, where electricity you can’t. Alternatively, you can come up with a hydroelectric power plant. There are technologies that can be used to store a little bit of hydrogen. But you fill your capacity very quickly.

Hay: So that’s a fundamental point. Is there a material that fits well to do this? Discovering those materials is about basic research. An increase in (federal) funding for the materials sciences is going to be an important part of this.

Miranowski: One of the problems with all fuels is the issue of infrastructure and storage. We have it for gas and crude oil because we’ve got big tanks and pipelines, where we can move things quickly. I don’t care if it is wind or electricity or hydrogen, all have major storage problems. I see a lot of potential for ethanol, wind and so forth in Iowa, but one of the big problems is getting it to markets. Part of that will be internal demand in Iowa. We don’t have many E85 pumps (handling a blend with 85 percent ethanol). We don’t have a set-up, in Iowa or in the nation, to move these alternative fuels.

Register: Is corn the right thing to use for ethanol?

Miranowski: Corn is now and was 25 years ago the most efficient feedstock. A lot of research is going on, but we don’t have a technology that is competitive. We need to be looking 20 years down the road. We might be producing a lot more high-value chemicals out of that corn. Ethanol may be the byproduct instead of being the main product.

Hay: We have just scratched the surface. One type of enzyme would give you this kind of ethanol, and another type would give you certain kinds of plastic, clothing or whatever.

Register: The Department of Energy is seeking proposals for building a biorefinery. Iowa’s in competition with other states for that. What could that mean to the state?

Brown: The Department of Energy is going to pay more than half the cost to build it. We are talking tens of millions of dollars in investment. The concept we would like to look at in Iowa is taking advantage of existing infrastructure in the ethanol industry by what is called a whole-plant biorefinery. The notion is that you take stover — the cornstalks and husks — and the corn grain to a processing facility.

Register: If you’re talking to the Legislature and new governor, where should we put our next research dollar?

Hay: It is in retaining faculty members, the best and the brightest, to go after the DOE (Department of Energy) money, the NSF (National Science Foundation) money. It is about the intellectual capital that this state will have. Iowa has a very rich source of intellectual capital that we take for granted. We have to pay these people, we have to incent them and keep them in Iowa. This fellow right here (nodding to Robert Brown) is one of the best in the United States, if not the world, and he is being recruited every day. I am advocating for research for the next 50 to 100 years.

Brown: Iowa can decide they want to lead in this, and we are leading at the moment. I am afraid we are going to fall into third or fourth or fifth place very quickly. Every state around us is putting large dollars into this energy issue. I got my hands on a white paper written by the state of Illinois that said, “We should lead in this area, the biobased products. And who is our competition? Iowa. We’re going to eat their lunch. They don’t have industry base. They are not going to put their money into their universities.”

Hay: When you think of the past huge national research initiatives of our country, we go to Sputnik immediately. The national call was recruit and retain the best and the brightest scientists from around the world, bring them to the United States and figure out how to get a man on the moon. We did that. We also did it with the Manhattan Project. It has always been about the people. Ethanol is going to be about the people, the intellectual capital you can recruit.

Brown: (It) is about people deciding this is the center of the universe.
Miranowski: You have to think of it in terms of having a critical mass of people in biobased products or biorenewables so when that federal agenda is changing from year to year, you can be competitive in that ballgame. To specify it in a narrowly defined area, say biofuels, may not be the best way to go. Down the road a few years, it might be biochemicals. We are talking about this as energy; I’d like to think of it in a much broader sense. This is basically a replacement for fossil fuels.

Register: How would you get this ball rolling?

Miranowski: We can’t afford to waste another day, because we are going to very quickly be usurping our position of leadership by other states. There has got to be a firm commitment: the money is there, the support is there, at the state Legislature level, at the university level. Plus, you have to have the state of Iowa behind you, and the state involves broader than just the Legislature and universities. We have to believe in ourselves that this is going to come true.

Stigliani: My only concern is there’s been a lot of emphasis on ethanol. We’ve still got coal, unless climate change becomes a major issue. There’s lots of uncertainty. What would happen 10 or 20 years from now if ethanol doesn’t pan out? Does that leave the state in a bad position, or is there some fallback?

Miranowski: That’s why I termed it biobased products. I don’t know the relative importance of ethanol 20 years from now. But I see tremendous opportunities.

Pecharsky: Iowa has to take the lead. From the beginning, I was indicating balance. I would broaden it as far as energy goes: I would call this sustainability, or sustainable energy, whether it comes from bio, wind, sun, geothermal. We shouldn’t say, 'We’re just going to dismiss that because it has no future.’ Who knows?