04/14/06 New Bioproducts Facility

Ground breaking for new bioproducts center. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Bioproducts are a hot topic and may be our only real viable alternative to fossil fuels. Yesterday, ground was broken for a new 57,000 square foot research center in Richland, Washington that will concentrate on developing technologies to convert biomass, agricultural wastes, into fuels and chemicals. The new Bioproducts Sciences and Engineering Laboratory is a joint venture between Washington State University Tri-Cities and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. BSEL has the potential to significantly contribute to Washington State's economy by expanding agricultural markets and creating jobs and investment opportunities throughout the region. It will reduce the volume of agricultural waste presently disposed to the environment and decrease the nation`s reliance on imported oil and gas. WSU's Chancellor David Lemak talks about the benefit of the new facility to the Ag industry. LEMAK: It's going to be huge. Because what it's going to do is to cement even further the relationship we have with the Ag community in the sense that we're going to be doing additional kinds of research that's going to benefit them. It's going to allow them to make much more efficient use of their resources. Things that are now scrapped and throw away are now going to become high value products in a variety of different ways. Resins, plastics, perhaps even fuels. Lemak says this joint effort will offer more jobs and better opportunities to develop important new products. LEMAK: The addition of this building and the partnership with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory is going to being together world class researchers from the lab, we're going to go out and hire some world class faculty researchers on the WSU side. Bring those two sets of folks together. Turn that place into a world renowned, we hope, center of research for bioproducts, biofuels, those kinds of things. Lemak also believes that research is the key to the future of the Ag industry. LEMAK: One of the things that I think is important for the future of Ag in this state is down the research side. Coming up with more and better ways of not only growing crops but using them and using the byproducts from agricultural industry to strengthen our economic development and the growth of our economy. The facility is designed to provide maximum interaction between national laboratory researchers, industry and university faculty and students, creating a unique learning and research experience. The new research center has a $24 million dollar price tag and not only will create new construction jobs but through BSEL, WSU and PNNL hope to create new technologies and products that could be spun off to private industry in Washington State. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.