Soon after Thomas Edison patented his first invention—the electric vote recorder—in 1868, he was informed that, despite his ingenuity, Congress was unwilling to mass produce the novel machine. As it were, Edison’s unsolicited device simply recorded votes too fast, worked too well and was no doubt ahead of its time. Dejected, Edison vowed he’d never again invent anything unless it had, as he put it, "commercial demand." That simple rule of thumb—avoid inventing things people don’t want—is as relevant today as it was 138 years ago, yet it is an entrepreneurial guideline too often learned the hard way in both science and business.

Gerald Groenewold, director of the University of North Dakota’s Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC), harkened back to Edison’s lesson in the opening minutes of a conference titled, “Biomass ’06: Power, Fuels and Chemicals,” as he explained the EERC’s position on novel and emergent biomass technologies and applications. The two-day conference, held July 18-19 at the EERC’s recently expanded headquarters in Grand Forks, N.D., featured presentations on all things biomass, ranging from the gasification of lignocellulosic feedstocks to the manufacturing of biomaterials. Biodiesel received considerable attention during the first day’s proceedings. Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), Cargill Inc. and other companies dispatched representatives to the EERC to discuss biodiesel production, current research and development priorities, emerging opportunities, and of course, challenges facing the industry.

In his opening statements, Groenewold said the EERC is not simply a research and development center, but rather a “research, development, demonstration and commercialization” center—what he dubbed an RDD&C facility. The EERC was defederalized years ago and has achieved considerable success predominantly through private industry partnerships. The facility had 435 contracts worth approximately $135 million last year, and Groenewold told the audience of nearly 200 that he credits the EERC’s success to an unyielding commitment to “practical, entrepreneurial, market-driven research” aimed at producing commercial results. That, he said, means the EERC and its private industry partners often assume the risk and involvedness that come with demonstration and commercialization. “The world is full of research and development centers. When I hear people say they work in research and development, I say, ‘I’m sorry you stopped with the easy stuff.’” Groenewold quipped.

Groenewold’s frank, entrepreneurial style worked well to set the workshop’s pragmatic tone. Indeed, speakers who followed, including Cargill’s Ian Purtle, echoed Groenewold’s advocacy of private and public sector partnerships designed to expedite commercialization—or simply make it possible. “At Cargill, we believe the strength and nature of partnerships are critical to optimizing the outcomes of the research and development projects we undertake,” Purtle said.

Those who spoke principally about biodiesel on July 18, did so in largely broad contexts, discussing the renewable fuel’s past, present and future in a way that was clearly linked to the scope and overarching viability of global biomass utilization. Fittingly, those biodiesel-related presentations—as well as the questions and answer periods that followed—seemed never to disconnect from the veracity of the world’s fossil fuel dependence. The future of oil, speakers agreed, means everything to the viability of biomass utilization. The questions at hand, they said, include: How much oil does the world have? How soon will oil start to run out? Indeed, has the long decline already begun? “We live in a world that is increasingly susceptible to high energy prices,” Groenewold said, adding that he personally does not believe there is a lack of petroleum on Earth. “Contrary to popular opinion, there is not a shortage of [carbon] molecules. There’s a lot of petroleum out there. What the real problem is, is that there is a lack of ‘rate of flow’ of those molecules to the surface of the Earth where people can obtain and use them.” In other words, what the EERC’s director believes is that the world’s easy-to-get oil has, in fact, already been obtained—or is being obtained. On the other hand, he said, there is an enormous amount of hard-to-get oil that still remains within the Earth. Speeding up the rate at which that oil flows from potentially dwindling reserves is, in fact, the real test. “If technology can enhance the rate of flow, then the whole equation is going to change,” Groenewold said. “But right now, the rate of flow is restricted in most places [of the world], and so we are focused on a wide array of alternative energy sources.”

Groenewold went on to say biomass-derived fuels, power, chemicals and products—even when pooled with all other forms of renewable energy—are not a “silver bullet” solution to the world’s energy needs. “A lot of people would like to believe we can go totally to renewable energy,” he said. “I don’t believe that’s going to happen, not for a very, very long time anyway. … We will continue to produce and consume a lot of petroleum energy for a long time to come—and our own research reflects that.”

In fact, Groenewold said the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB), a group comprised of governors and state legislators from 16 southern states released a critically acclaimed study in mid-July that focused on America's liquid transportation fuel options. The “American Energy Security Study” presents a comprehensive plan for U.S. energy security through the production of clean liquid transportation fuels from domestic resources. The plan sets an aggressive timeline for achieving energy independence by 2030. The initiative outlines the costs, risks and national security implications of U.S. dependence on imported oil, and presents a national mission plan and supporting legislative agenda to secure energy stability and independence. Key elements of the plan include the creation of “alternative energy farms” that would utilize a variety of currently available technologies, large-scale implementation of coal-to-liquids processes to convert U.S. coal and oil shale resources into “ultra-clean fuels,” extensive development of biomass to produce renewable liquid transportation fuels, increased transportation fuel efficiency, sensible energy conservation, and a legislative agenda that creates incentives for rapid deployment of domestic, energy resources. The initiative also backs innovative efforts to increase domestic enhanced oil recovery by injecting carbon dioxide into declining oil fields to release additional trapped oil and safely sequester the carbon dioxide underground.

“It may surprise some of you, but we here at EERC tend to agree with this study,” Groenewold said, “We think biomass … in the longer term, may provide perhaps 20 percent of the energy needs of this country.” Therefore, while many energy experts believe the United States and the world will, for a long time, remain dependent on a wide range of energy technologies, fossil fuels will continue to be our primary source of energy. A world in which biomass energy has a one-fifth market share, however, may be music to the ears of those with a stake in biodiesel.

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