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Exploring how various carbon emission policies could affect biofuel production and determining the cost of harvesting, storing and transporting corn stover are among the initial research results that will come out of the Biobased Industry Center this year. A second round of yearlong projects is in the process of being selected, which will continue the center’s focus on giving sponsors, Iowa State University and the public a better understanding of some of the major business, infrastructure, supply chain and policy issues affecting a growing biobased economy.

Modeled after similar policy research consortiums across the country, Iowa State’s Biobased Industry Center brings together corporate and nonprofit sponsors to help fund and advise researchers on projects related to the biorenewables industry. The center was formed in 2008 as an offshoot of the Bioeconomy Institute, designed to encourage more collaboration on biorenewable research among different departments.

John Miranowski, interim co-director of the center and director of the Institute of Science and Society, said the partnership has helped direct Iowa State researchers’ projects toward relevant and timely issues. For Johnston-based Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc., one of the corporate sponsors, the center is a key resource in combining the technical and scientific issues related to biorenewables with public policy and logistical considerations, and providing factual support for some of the assumptions made by politicians and people in the industry.

“Projects up there facilitate good decision-making on the part not only of policy-makers, but also players in the industry like Pioneer,” said Russell Sanders, the company’s director of biorenewables.

“I think it’s a nice thing, this arrangement with companies like ours that have a very real stake and a deep level of involvement in this industry to be able to bring our thoughts, ideas and perspectives as it relates to these project proposals,” he said. “Hopefully it will help influence the decision making on projects, so we select proposals that generate the greatest worth.”

Pioneer is among the nine industrial partners and two nonprofit organizations that are sponsors of the center. Companies with more than 500 employees pay $50,000 per year and those with fewer than 500 pay $15,000 per year to have a seat on the advisory board. Other sponsors include Hawkeye Energy Holdings LLC, ConocoPhillips and General Motors Corp.

Last year, grants ranging between $40,000 and $50,000 supported four nonproprietary research projects.

Three of the four focused on carbon emission policy as federal policy-makers discuss new legislation, California implements its Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the Midwest talks about a cap-and-trade system similar to one the Northeast has tried to implement. Miranowski said he was “a little bit surprised” to hear how much businesses are concerned about potential carbon policy.

Among the research projects wrapping up this year are:

· To develop an economic model to evaluate costs for reducing carbon emissions and analyze different biofuel processing technologies;

· To build a carbon model to estimate greenhouse gas emissions of biofuels and to estimate changes under different policy scenarios; and

· To develop an economic framework for assessing the impact of biofuels’ greenhouse gas emissions with land-use changes.

Research that looks at how different policy changes would affect the industry is “so timely right now,” Sanders said, and issues such as California’s carbon regulations “are very real situations where good quality information can really help there be better decision making by policy leaders.”

Another area of focus has been analyzing the cost of harvesting corn stover (the leaves and stocks of corn plants), as well as storing and transporting it to ethanol plants using current technologies. Miranowski said initial findings are showing “relatively high cost-per-gallon of fuel produced just for the harvest, storage and transport,” of corn stover, he said, which could have a huge impact on the production of cellulosic ethanol.

The advisory board and executive team are reviewing about 10 projects for the upcoming year, but will not have the resources to fund all of them, Miranowski said. Plus, the leaders want to be selective, picking proposals that are most relevant to today’s issues. Some of the new proposals, such as one that Miranowski has submitted, are building on research from the first year’s projects.

The advisory board, which meets twice a year, creates a list of highest-priority issues, which the executive team uses to issue a request for proposals from Iowa State researchers and to decide which projects to fund.

“I think all the participants around the table try to take a big-picture view,” Sanders said. “We want to help the industry grow and prosper because at the end of the day, our solutions have to be economically viable, have to be consistent with the environmental policy standards policy-makers will set.” Sanders added that the agenda so far has been on target with what Pioneer has wanted to see for projects.

The center also is searching for an executive director, who also will hold the Cargill Endowed Chair in Energy Economics, created by a $1.5 million donation by Cargill Inc. It’s hoped that the director will increase participation in the center, Miranowski said, after no new companies have come on board since at least the start of this year.

But Miranowski, who began his research in biofuels in 1976 and worked more than 10 years for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said interest in biorenewable issues hasn’t waned, even as the price of gasoline has fallen from record levels last year.

“The carbon issue is very much keeping us alive,” he said.