by Daniel Molzahn

“The territory of the Department of Energy is quickly becoming the territory of the Department of Agriculture,” said Lee Edwards, CEO of Virent Energy Systems, at his keynote speech to open the second annual Wisconsin Bioenergy Summit. The University of Wisconsin has recognized this convergence of agriculture and energy through the creation of the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative (WBI), which sponsors the summit. After Troy Runge, director of WBI, gave a brief description of Wisconsin’s unique position with regard to biomass energy, Edwards discussed the both the policy environment that has greatly influenced the biofuels industry and the innovative process that Virent is using to overcome technical barriers.

Virent, a Madison based company that grew from UW research, has the potential to move transportation biofuels beyond the statutory “blend wall” limitation of ten percent maximum ethanol concentration in gasoline. In contrast to ethanol production, Virent aims to work within the established petroleum-based infrastructure and with existing engine technologies. Using any soluble sugar as a feedstock, Virent’s technology can produce a variety of fuels, including jet fuels, which are equal to or surpass current petroleum-based fuels in energy density and octane content. Edwards is hopeful that technological advances in cellulosic material processing will soon enable Virent to produce fuels from this abundant feedstock as well.

Edwards cautions, however, that the bioenergy policy arena is more complicated than it has been in the past. In his opinion, long-term policies that stimulate both manufacturing investment and research will be necessary to solve the problems of energy security and global warming.

To learn more about Virent Energy Systems, visit their webpage at http://www.virent.com/. More details about the Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative and the Wisconsin Bioenergy Summit can be found at http://www.wbi.wisc.edu/.