Wisconsin Governor Wants to Cut $8 Million from Bioenergy Research

- by Thomas Con­tent and Lee Bergquist, Feb­ru­ary 28, 2015, Jour­nal Sentinel

In an about-face from his first term, Gov. Scott Walk­er wants to elim­i­nate fund­ing for a Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin-Madi­son renew­able ener­gy research cen­ter that has played a key role in help­ing land one of its biggest gov­ern­ment grants ever.

In his bud­get, Walk­er is propos­ing to elim­i­nate $8.1 mil­lion over two years — a total of 35 posi­tions — from a bioen­er­gy program.

The reduc­tions are sep­a­rate from his pro­pos­al to cut $300 mil­lion from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wis­con­sin Sys­tem over the next two years.

The research pro­gram, found­ed in 2009, is charged with devel­op­ing tech­nolo­gies to con­vert wood chips, corn stalks and native grass­es to home­grown sources of power.

The pro­gram also funds research in oth­er ener­gy dis­ci­plines, includ­ing pow­er gen­er­a­tion and ener­gy effi­cien­cy. Last year, John­son Con­trols, the state’s largest com­pa­ny, opened an ener­gy stor­age research lab on the UW campus.

Along with wind, solar and hydro­elec­tric pow­er, bioen­er­gy is seen as a long-term option to reduce the state’s reliance on coal, oil and nat­ur­al gas.

Sup­port­ers view bioen­er­gy as Wis­con­sin’s most promis­ing source of renew­able pow­er, since mate­ri­als can be burned con­tin­u­ous­ly, mak­ing them more reli­able than wind and solar.

UW offi­cials say that Walk­er’s pro­pos­al to end fund­ing for the bioen­er­gy pro­gram would crip­ple broad­er ener­gy-devel­op­ment research that is receiv­ing $25 mil­lion annu­al­ly from the fed­er­al Depart­ment of Energy.

“I can’t hon­est­ly say how we would replace it at this point,” said Michael Cor­ra­di­ni, direc­tor of the Wis­con­sin Ener­gy Insti­tute at UW-Madison,which derives 90% of its fund­ing from the bioen­er­gy program.

Fed­er­al research center

In 2007, Wis­con­sin land­ed the Great Lakes Bioen­er­gy Research Cen­ter — the first fed­er­al research cen­ter the state had attract­ed in decades. The cen­ter received an ini­tial five-year, $125 mil­lion grant from the U.S. Depart­ment of Energy.

Itwas part of a $375 mil­lion pack­age by the admin­is­tra­tion of Pres­i­dent George W. Bush to fund ener­gy projects at UW and two oth­er research pow­er­hous­es — Oak Ridge Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry in Ten­nessee and the Lawrence Berke­ley Nation­al Lab­o­ra­to­ry in California.

UW’s fund­ing was renewed for anoth­er five years in 2013.

Walk­er’s pro­pos­al “puts us in a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion,” Cor­ra­di­ni said, because of com­mit­ments the state made to help land the fed­er­al research center.

“Any dis­con­tin­u­ing of the match­ing funds would place the Board of Regents in non­com­pli­ance with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment,” Cor­ra­di­ni said.

Alan Perl­stein, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Mil­wau­kee-based Mid­west Ener­gy Research Con­sor­tium, said UW ener­gy research pro­grams pro­vide key tech­ni­cal exper­tise to help com­pa­nies that devel­op new products.

As they review the bud­get, law­mak­ers should rec­og­nize that invest­ing in ener­gy research leads to inno­va­tions that cre­ate jobs for Wis­con­sin com­pa­nies, he said.

To sup­port UW’s appli­ca­tion for the Great Lakes Bioen­er­gy Research Cen­ter, Demo­c­ra­t­ic Gov. Jim Doyle com­mit­ted $104 million.

That includ­ed $50 mil­lion in state funds in 2009 for con­struc­tion of a $100 mil­lion ener­gy research head­quar­ters on the UW cam­pus, accord­ing to Leg­isla­tive Fis­cal Bureau doc­u­ments. Anoth­er $50 mil­lion in gifts and grants helped fund con­struc­tion of the build­ing, which opened in 2013.

In addi­tion, Doyle pro­vid­ed $4 mil­lion to hire new fac­ul­ty — mon­ey Walk­er is propos­ing to eliminate.

In a state­ment, Walk­er spokes­woman Lau­rel Patrick said the gov­er­nor’s pro­pos­al is part of his plan to pro­vide block grants to the UW Sys­tem and give admin­is­tra­tors new author­i­ty that would free them from many reg­u­la­tions and rules.

The UW Sys­tem “has the abil­i­ty to fund this pro­gram out of their block grant if they decide it is a pri­or­i­ty,” she said.

‘Skin in the game’

Tom Still, pres­i­dent of the Wis­con­sin Tech­nol­o­gy Coun­cil, said he isn’t in a posi­tion to say whether the loss of mon­ey will kill future fed­er­al fund­ing for bioenergy.

“It is com­mon prac­tice that fed­er­al agen­cies hand­ing out grants expect a state or pri­vate match,” Still said. “They are look­ing for skin in the game.”

In recent months, audi­tors from the Depart­ment of Ener­gy asked for assur­ances that the state was still pro­vid­ing finan­cial sup­port for the Great Lakes Bioen­er­gy Research Cen­ter, Cor­ra­di­ni said.

The Ener­gy Depart­ment declined to com­ment on how the state bud­get cuts would affect future fund­ing for the fed­er­al research center.

Wis­con­sin has few fed­er­al research cen­ters, Still said. They include the U.S. For­est Prod­ucts Lab­o­ra­to­ry and Nation­al Wildlife Health Lab­o­ra­to­ry, both in Madi­son. By com­par­i­son, Col­orado has more than 30, accord­ing to Still.

100th patent

Last week, UW announced that the Great Lakes Bioen­er­gy Research Cen­ter had filed its 100th patent appli­ca­tion since 2007.

In one patent, bio­chemist John Ralph teamed with researchers from Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty and the Uni­ver­si­ty of British Colum­bia to engi­neer wood in poplar trees to make them eas­i­er to degrade and be con­vert­ed into a source of fuel.

In anoth­er case, UW research devel­oped a process to break down plant sug­ars to pro­duce chem­i­cals that come from bio­log­i­cal and not petro­le­um sources.

St. Louis-based Glu­Can Biore­new­ables, a start-up, is look­ing to apply that tech­nol­o­gy. It is rais­ing mon­ey to con­struct a pilot plant at a north­ern Wis­con­sin paper mill to pro­duce a chem­i­cal for papermaking.

Glu­Can received research fund­ing, lab space and equip­ment from the bioen­er­gy pro­gram, accord­ing to chief exec­u­tive Vic­ki Gonzalez.

“For a start-up com­pa­ny like ours, the insti­tute has a lot of equip­ment that we just can’t afford,” she said.