Conservation, Renewable Resources

The University: Experience and Qualifications

Since its founding in 1855 as the first land grant university in the U.S., Michigan State University has adhered to its original mission: to “strive to discover practical uses for theoretical knowledge, and to speed the diffusion of information to residents of the state, the nation, and the world.” In operational terms, MSU has concentrated on building its strengths in educating and training succeeding generations of researchers both from the U.S. and the world at large. It has sought to establish collaborative links with people and institutions worldwide, broadening its research, academic and service outreach.

MSU is recognized as a center of excellence in international development. The academic and professional community at Michigan State is highly diverse and responsive and augments the University’s international goals with a broad array of globally relevant skills and expertise. People from every county in Michigan, every state in the U.S. and 134 countries around the world contribute to the University’s success. Annually, more than 3500 international students and scholars enroll in MSU’s graduate and undergraduate and certificate programs. MSU plays host to hundreds of international visitors every year who come to view campus research facilities, participate in campus life as visiting scholars and specialists, or to meet with MSU colleagues. Hundreds of MSU faculty members are engaged in critical outreach programs in many countries throughout the world, teaching, conducting research or providing technical assistance.

For more than 50 years, Michigan State University has been a leader among U.S. universities in international development programs. MSU has had a broad and deepening involvement in conducting technical assistance and research in developing countries, assisting the development of new institutions, and providing training for development tasks. MSU, through its Departments and Institutes and Centers, has also managed projects throughout the world, providing short- and long-term in-country technical assistance, degree and non-degree training programs, and extensive backstopping support from the main campus. The Office of the Dean of International Studies and Programs has overall responsibility for the university’s international initiatives. While historically a majority of MSU’s international development and technical assistance projects have been conducted by faculty in various departments of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, international expertise is increasingly incorporated into all aspects of university life marking MSU as a global university.

The Office of Contract and Grant Administration (CGA) holds fiscal audit authority and responsibility for the MSU contractual portfolio with both domestic and international external donors. In fiscal 2006-2007 awards for sponsored projects reached $308 million. To ensure that MSU is aware of, and can comply with the various agency regulations, CGA is organized by funding agency. CGA has a separate group dedicated to administration of international projects.

Conservation and Renewable Resources

Some of the earliest conservation programs of research and outreach in America were initiatives of the MSU Extension Service and the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. From this base have grown multidisciplinary efforts devoted to conservation and renewable resources which cut across college and program. Core faculty are deeply involved in research, outreach and teaching in: agricultural economics, economics, fisheries and wildlife, forestry, park, recreation and tourism resources, resource development.

MSU offers graduate programs in all of these fields, including environmental and resource economics, among the first in the nation:

• Environmental economics is concerned with the byproducts of an economy. These byproducts affect the environment and, in turn, human activities and human well-being. Environmental economists look at ways to make sure that the benefits and costs of byproducts are fully considered by firms, households, and public agencies.

• Resource economics looks at the economic role of specific natural resources, such as air, water, forests, ecosystems, and land. An important question is how an economy allocates resources across people, space, and time. Policies are examined for their impacts on scarcity and sustainability.

Life Cycle Models of Biobased Product Systems

Over the next century, conservation will demand a much larger fraction of chemicals, materials and fuels to be produced from plant raw materials. These biobased industrial products offer the potential for a much more sustainable economy based on environmentally-superior products. In order to realize the full economic and environmental benefits of biobased products, we must carefully analyze and improve their life cycle performance. MSU researchers are currently involved in life cycle studies involving "refining" of corn, soybeans and forage crops (alfalfa and switchgrass) to fuel ethanol and other products. Our goal is to identify portions of the overall agricultural production, biorefining and product use systems that have the greatest impact on environmental and economic performance so that these areas can be targeted for additional research and improvement.

Eventually more fuels, chemicals and materials will be produced from renewable plant materials. MSU scientist’s current work is focused on pretreatments to increase the conversion of lignocellulose to fermentable sugars. They collaborate with others on the development of microorganisms and engineering strategies to ferment complex mixtures of these sugars. A new project is to genetically engineer plants to express the cellulase (cellulose-hydrolyzing) enzymes in plant tissue and then to develop processing strategies so that these enzymes can retain their activity until they are released in the biorefinery. MSU researchers are also working to develop optimal mixtures of hydrolytic enzymes to convert the complex carbohydrates in biomass to fermentable sugars.

Other MSU initiatives:

Carbohydrate feedstocks such as glucose or xylose can be hydrogenated to sugar alcohols and further cracked to value-added polyols such as ethylene glycol, propylene glycol, and glycerol.

Organic acids constitute an important class of feed materials for renewable resource-based chemicals production. Hydrogenation in aqueous solutions gives a variety of valuable products; both fundamental and applied aspects are studied.

Formation of chemical products from renewable resource-based feedstocks often results in a complex product mixture or dilute product streams. Novel separation and recovery schemes reduce costs and enhance product purities.

The production of distilled beverages is an old industry that is currently experiencing a rebirth with the emergence of smaller artisan distillers in the US. The current research is aimed at ensuring product quality and assisting artisan distillers in establishing new business opportunitites. Work includes fermentation, distillation, and product development. The overall aim is the further development of an industry that provides value added opportunities for agriculture.

Chemical Engineering and Materials Science http://www.chems.msu.edu/

• Modeling Phytoremediation Processes

In collaboration with plant and environmental scientists at MSU, models for environmental remediation processes based on green plants are being developed. The models are based in fundamental processes of transport and reaction in unconfined environmental systems and make full use of dimensionless quantities as means of generalizing and scaling our results. The project's goal is to develop robust predictive tools that will allow us to predict the conditions under which plants can enhance the rate and/or extent of remediation of soil and water contaminated with petroleum hydrocarbons.

The Center for Plant Products and Technologies

http://www.msu.edu/~cppt/