By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
ESCANABA, Mich. — The Upper Peninsula (UP) Tree Improvement Center has just been awarded a grant to do research and outreach to help the state’s budding bioeconomy.

The money, $1.4 million, will be funneled through the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, most likely sometime this year. The funds are part of a $410 billion federal omnibus spending bill. The money will allow researchers from Michigan State University and Michigan Technological University to explore how forest feedstocks can be used in the most economically efficient manner.

“It is not a biofuels research program,” said Bill Cook, an extension forester in the UP who is familiar with the program. “The project is looking at feedstock supply, the mechanisms by which wood products get from the forest to the plant.”

He provided a couple of examples to make his point: “Logging slash is a low density and widely spread resource,” he said of the woody residue left over after an area has been logged. “How do you collect that slash to make it economically feasible?”

Another example Cook gave was research into how dense a tree plantation should be in order to make it
economically viable as a feedstock for a biofuel facility. Cook said these kinds of issues aren’t thought about often enough, yet are extremely important.

He also said the prices paid for forest products is a more complicated matter than it is for conventional agricultural products and that this is an area that could also be studied.

“There’s no farm gate price for forest products, and it’s less well understood than agricultural products,” he said. “Yet the potential for energy production from the forest is much greater than it is from the agricultural sector.”

Cook went on to explain that the $1.4 million is complementary to the Center for Energy Excellence, where the Mascoma Corp. ethanol plant will be located. These latest federal dollars will be spent to help identify the best possible places in the state for other biofuel facilities.

“We’re looking at ways we can be more efficient in how we harvest, transport and process our feedstock,” said Donna LaCourt, sector development manager for bioeconomy for the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC).

The MEDC is a nonprofit corporation that receives state tax dollars to facilitate business deals and dole out federal grants. The MEDC is collaborating with MSU, Michigan Tech, Mascoma and Frontier Renewable Resources in this project.

Frontier is a new company created by J.M. Longyear and Mascoma; Longyear is a company based in the UP that has expertise in wood products that Mascoma needs, Cook said.

All of this is really part of a larger scheme that revolves around the Centers for Energy Excellence concept created by Michigan Public Act 175 last year. LaCourt said $45 million was allocated to the centers and $20 million of these funds have already been awarded to Mascoma.

The way the process works is that a private for-profit company, such as Mascoma, applies for a grant and, if it is awarded, the company must include at least one institution of higher learning as a collaborator. The money is actually distributed by the board of the Michigan Strategic Fund, an entity that was created for this purpose. LaCourt said the board makes decisions about how the money will be spent.

“The thought is to concentrate resources around the development of a commercial technology,” LaCourt said.

She also said Mascoma’s commercial scale cellulosic ethanol plant is projected to be operational sometime in 2012. Ground has yet to be broken on the plant.