Scientists team up to seek grants

Consortium touts bioenergy efforts

Triangle researchers are trying to highlight the state's work on "clean" energy and tap into the money being generated by research initiatives.

This month, Duke University, UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State University and RTI International formed the Research Triangle Energy Consortium. Its goal is to attract more of the federal grants and venture investments that until now have headed to alternative-energy research hubs in Texas, Massachusetts and California. In turn, the organizers hope that such research will spur startup companies and stimulate economic development.

"If the Research Triangle can't be a player in this, we're really dropping the ball given our intellectual resources," said Chris Gould, NCSU's associate dean for administration in the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. "We ought to be the Silicon Valley of bioenergy research."

Instead, North Carolina has a reputation as an energy innovator in the Southeast, said David Kirkpatrick, managing director of SJF Ventures, a venture capital fund in Durham and New York. As an indication of North Carolina's lag, SJF has yet to invest in a North Carolina-based alternative energy project, Kirkpatrick said.

Meanwhile, escalating electricity costs, energy shortages and climate change concerns have prompted other regions to aggressively promote clean energy.

The groundwork for clean energy development already exists in North Carolina.

NCSU conducts research at its Solar Center, and several dozen businesses statewide develop fuel cells, biofuels and solar energy. RTI International has been developing clean coal technology for 15 years, part of a federal program to turn coal into a gas and separate the carbon dioxide for permanent underground disposal.

The state this year created the $5 million Biofuels Center of North Carolina to promote research and development of alternative fuels from North Carolina crops and agricultural waste.

The N.C. Green Business Fund, also created this year, will invest in clean-energy companies in the state to spur biofuels, green building and other efforts. The $1 million effort will be administered by the state Department of Commerce.

But much of the work in the state has not been coordinated and isn't being promoted, concerns that members of the consortium hope to address.

"We're not viewed in Washington or in Houston as a big player in energy, and we want to change that," said David Myers, RTI's vice president of engineering and technology.

N.C. raised the stakes

Alternative energy got a major boost this year in North Carolina when the state became the first in the Southeast to adopt a law requiring utilities to tap renewable resources and energy-efficiency programs to meet growing energy demand. Half the states in the U.S. have such a requirement, which creates a market for renewables.

The consortium has a modest first-year budget -- $100,000 from RTI and the three universities -- to create a nonprofit group with four employees. The positions have not been filled.

The outlay pales in comparison to a $500 million research effort being undertaken by the University of California, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois.

Other communities also are trying to position themselves as energy research centers. The Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce has hired a recruiter to attract clean energy companies. Austin also led the way by creating the Clean Energy Incubator in 2001, an effort of the city, the municipal electric utility and the University of Texas that has led to eight businesses.

For its part, the Triangle consortium has announced two research projects: a collaboration between RTI and Duke to develop more efficient solar photovoltaic panels, and a project at RTI and N.C. State to create liquid fuel from wood waste, animal waste and other biomass.

The consortium's mission is to combine the universities and RTI's research strengths to solve problems related to energy use.

"It could be a big deal in terms of a critical mass that competes against MIT and Cal Tech for major federal earmarks," said Dennis Grady, a political science professor at Appalachian State University who directs the ASU Energy Center. "The bemusement I feel is, maybe we should have done this sooner."