Contact: Robbie Ward
STARKVILLE, Miss.--As gas prices rise steadily and public concerns grow about the world's petroleum supply, Mississippi State researchers continue to ramp up research into possible long-term energy solutions.
Engineers, scientists and other faculty members at the university long have investigated alternative energy processes and methods that could help supplement United States national energy reserves. For about a decade, campus scientists investigated biofuels within separate academic areas. In 2006, university leaders moved to create the Sustainable Energy Research Center to provide a focused effort in alternative energy research at the land-grant university.
SERC primarily tackles a range of areas with an eye on using resources readily available in Mississippi and the Southeast. Currently, a center team is creating fuel from crops, waste water and other sources the average citizen wouldn't dream of pumping into their vehicle fuel tank.
The center's work complements goals set by the U.S. Department of Energy to replace 25 percent of the nation's energy from traditional fuel sources with renewable energy by 2017.
In January, a barrel of oil reached $100 for the first time on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That price seems a lifetime away from the less than $25 a barrel in 2003 and less than $11 in 1998. While the $100 mark dropped in recent weeks, analysts believe increased demands from industrialized countries like China and India will cause oil prices to again rise dramatically.
Recently, the Energy Department provided $10.8 million for the MSU center to continue its biofuels research. Two researchers, Todd French and Rafael Hernandez of the Swalm School of Chemical Engineering, have identified a very unconventional source for creating bio-crude oil--wastewater treatment plants throughout the country.
The assistant professors said their research could translate into about five billion gallons a year from a method to "grow" bio-crude from the treatment plants.
While their innovative process could produce bio-crude for about $80 a barrel at present, they continue to "tweak the process" with a goal of decreasing costs to nearly half that amount.
"This is the only technology that takes waste and byproducts to make oil," French said. "Nobody else in the world is working on what we're doing."
After earlier receiving a separate $200,000 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency, the two chemical engineering researchers began putting into operation their plans for using wastewater treatment plants as bio-refineries.
With small-scale experiments having shown promise, the pair now is making plans to expand the pilot technology at a Mississippi municipal facility in about a year. They'll use an existing treatment plant to help by-pass the expensive infrastructure startup costs required in building an independent test facility.
French and Hernandez are among 80 faculty members and some 50 graduate students from MSU's eight academic colleges who make up the SERC professional staff. At present, they continue projects begun with an earlier $13 million in grants from the Energy Department, EPA, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the private sector.
NEWS EDITORS/DIRECTORS: For more information on the work of the SERC, contact Dr. French at 662-325-4308 or french@che.msstate.edu. The center Web site is www.serc.msstate.edu.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.