Following the announcement of Iowa State’s candidacy for a $500 million investment from energy giant BP, ISU President Gregory Geoffroy met with faculty and staff in a “town meeting” to address questions on the university’s ongoing work with biorenewable fuels.

“This is a huge area and will profoundly impact Iowa with lots of challenges and opportunities,” Geoffroy said.

To ensure the university is taking advantage of every possible opportunity in the field of biorenewable fuels, Geoffroy announced the establishment of a special weekly committee to oversee research opportunities.

He discussed Iowa State’s history of work in the field, which included creating the nation’s first graduate and Ph.D. programs in biorenewables. Geoffroy said the university is extremely well-positioned to capitalize on opportunities created by the recent surge of interest in the area.

“It plays directly into our strengths,” Geoffroy said.

Geoffroy pointed out that Iowa is the nation’s leading producer of corn grain ethanol, producing about two times as much as any other state. Robert Brown, director of the Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies, said although Iowa enjoys an advantage in corn production, research has shifted to focus on utilizing crops with higher fuel potential than corn.

“Iowa has no natural advantage over any other state in the area of cellulosic biorenewables,” Brown said.

The U.S. Department of Energy is planning to spend $250 million to create two new bioenergy research centers – each center receiving $125 million worth of funding, with $25 million in the first year. It has set a national goal to replace 30 percent of the transportation fuel needs with biorenewables by the year 2030, Geoffroy said.

“The goal in the end is U.S. energy independence,” he said.

There are a number of partnerships forming to compete for the grant. Purdue, Michigan State or the University of California-San Diego may emerge as one of Iowa State’s principal partners for the Department of Energy proposals, Geoffroy said.

Iowa State, in partnership with UCSD and the Venter Institute, has also recently been identified as a finalist for a $500 million grant from BP to establish an energy biosciences institute.

Five other universities were identified as finalists in the competition for the grant, including Cambridge and the Imperial College in the United Kingdom, Berkley, MIT with Purdue, and Iowa State with UCSD and the Venter Institute as a key partner in genomics, Geoffroy said.

The proposals for the BP grant are due Nov. 27, and BP expects to make a decision by the end of the calendar year.

Geoffroy said he is pleased by the support being shown by Iowa’s political leaders. He said biorenewable technologies, such as E-85, are “the future” and is excited by Iowa State’s opportunity to play a part.

“We are going to do for cellulose what George Washington Carver did for peanuts, but not for peanuts,” he said.