With a goal to move away from nonrenewable resources, the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, or MAES, has renamed its Escanaba, Mich., facility to better reflect its vision for the future.
Officials renamed the facility, originally known as the Upper Peninsula Tree Improvement Center, or UPTIC, to the Michigan State University Forest Biomass Innovation Center because the new name is closer to its overall mission, said Ray Miller, the MSU forest biomass development coordinator.
Biomass refers to any type of biological material that can be used as fuel to create energy.
Facility employees analyze several types of renewable resources that could be used as an alternative energy source for Michigan.
“This area of research is one that we feel will have a huge impact on the state of Michigan,” Miller said.
“It just made sense to both change the focus of what we do here and have the name represent what’s going on.”
Steve Pueppke, director of MAES, said the facility is key to understanding how Michigan’s abundance of forests can be used in ways other than creating paper or burning wood.
“We want to maintain that balance of activities but add more activity to use wood to (create) more energy,” Pueppke said.
“It is important to do this in a way that does not upset the balance. That’s where the word sustainability comes in.”
If the state is able to diversify its energy output, Miller said it is possible to stabilize energy costs.
Currently, consumers’ energy bills partially are based on Michigan’s dependence on nonrenewable resources such as fossil fuels.
“The money that’s spent in Michigan now could stay in Michigan when we buy local fuels like switchgrass, wood and so forth, as opposed to exporting it somewhere else,” Miller said.
Additional areas of research involve harvesting fast-growing trees for fuel. Pueppke said genetically modified trees can grow up to six to 12 feet in only three to five years.
The question is whether or not that can be sustainable in Michigan, Pueppke said.
“We have to be in it for the long haul, which we are,” he said.
Chris Saffron, an assistant professor in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering, said although MSU is not working on specific machinery, the university always is exploring new uses of bioenergy.
“(MSU) is working on technologies that will increase the use of biomass — liquid fuel (and) valuable materials,” Saffron said.
Although there is no such thing as a quick fix, Pueppke said he expects this project to grow in the upcoming years.
“People like the notion of renewable energy,” Pueppke said. “If we do it right, we can just keep renewing the energy source. The goal is reducing our dependence on nonrenewable energy and using our resources wisely.”
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