ISU researchers are studying Iowa’s cornfield leftovers in order to find ways to lower gas prices.

According to Iowa State’s Plant Sciences Institute, half of Iowa’s leftover cornstalks could one day offset up to 40 percent of U.S. fuel needs.

“These are astounding numbers that certainly make us stop and think,” said Steve Howell, director of the Plant Sciences Institute at Iowa State and member of the Biorenewables Research Initiative.

Logen, an agricultural biotechnology firm based in Ontario specializing in cellulose ethanol, has already begun converting wheat straw to ethanol.

At an agricultural conference last spring, representatives from the company shared with Howell and his colleagues that, although wheat straw works, corn stalks, or stover, would be more effective. With their wheat straw, they were able to produce ethanol for as little as $1 to $1.20 per gallon.

“That number also shocked us,” Howell said.

“And left us wondering what brought the costs down so low.”

The cost of transforming lignocellulosic resources, or cornstalks, into bio-energy, however, would be significant.

A single refinery would cost as much as $300 million.

There are also challenges in working with energy and oil companies, as well as the federal government, to help fund such an initiative.

Tom Richard, associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering at Penn State University and formerly of Iowa State, said it is hard to find someone to take the initial risk because the first trial-and-error refinery is projected to lose money, while the second is expected to gain.

Howell said another issue to avoid is competition with existing starch, or grain, ethanol plants.

Howell said they don’t want to endanger the industry with the threat of cellulose ethanol.

No matter how expensive initially, Howell said Iowa could become central to the nation’s fuel economy. He compared Saudi Arabia’s U.S. fuel contribution of 25 percent to Iowa’s possible contribution 40 percent.

“The price could plummet with bio-fuel introduction,” he said.

Howell said Iowa State is developing a strong program in biomass production in response to this new research.

The university is creating faculty positions that would focus on biomass crops.

Kendall Lamkey, director of the Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding at the Plant Sciences Institute and professor of agronomy, said Iowa State’s agronomy department is searching for a plant breeder to specifically research these crops.

He also said Iowa State is partnering with the University of Wisconsin in a USDA grant to research corn as a feedstock for lignocellulosic fuels.

“Right now, two of the biggest issues are making biomass production profitable for farmers and the logistics of storage and harvesting, including how a farmer would get the crop out of his field, where he would keep it, and then how it would be shipped to a plant,” Lamkey said.

“We’re looking at a medium-to-long term project here.”