Graduate students and American Indian tribes work for biofuel solutions

In the midst of rising concern about energy sources, many are looking at local, waste-derived biofuels as a renewable alternative to fossil fuels.

Eight UW graduate students are working with local American Indian tribes on a research and education program about biofuels in the Bioresource-Based Energy for Sustainable Societies program.

Led by professors from the UW’s College of Engineering, College of Forest Resources and department of American Indian studies, the program approaches biofuels in a comprehensive curriculum.

“We want to create a new generation of Ph.D. graduates in sustainable energy and develop local sources of renewable fuels,” said Dan Schwartz, a professor of chemical engineering and the leader of the inter-disciplinary group, in a press release.

With the help of a recent multimillion-dollar grant from the National Science Foundation in Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program (IGERT), the diverse faculty team has been able to implement its plan.

“A lot of us have been taught that we’re the custodians of the Earth,” said Tom Colonnese, a senior lecturer and the director of American Indian studies at the UW. “We’ve been here for thousands of years, and our own cultures were able to be sustainable.”

Involving American Indian tribes is a critical feature of the process. Not only do Washington’s tribes hold valuable forest resources, Colonnese said, but also they are often underrepresented in doctoral programs.

“We feel we have a special charge to do what we can,” he said. “Moreover, the fact that we manage forest reserves makes us more active players.”

The students, some of whom are American Indian, aim to work with tribes on progressive projects like harnessing water and wind energy on their reserves.

In addition to analyzing resource management and social implications, students must address the engineering challenges in making biofuel more accessible. Unlike procedures that grow crops specifically for biofuel, their curriculum focuses on utilizing waste from forest debris, paper mills and agricultural crops.

Using biofuels is less damaging than the mass importation of palm oil initially embraced by the European Union Biofuels Directive, according to a Feb. 8 article in The New York Times. Most biofuels in the United States are made from plants such as corn and carried across the country.

A major focus of the curriculum is “Life Cycle Assessment,” an evaluation of an industrial system’s social and environmental impact, where students investigate the strategies of “cradle-to-cradle” production.

In traditional manufacturing, nonrenewable products have been thrown into landfills no longer suited for use. The research the graduate students undergo involves bioprocessing of cellulosic biomass, microscale chemical processing, fuel cells and forest biotechnology.

“We’re trying to positively counter global warming,” Colonnese said. “Economically speaking, oil is up $108 a barrel. It’s created a huge debt for today’s youth, and so much of it is related to oil. In that sense, I don’t think you can have a more important project.”

[Reach contributing writer Annie Atherton at development@thedaily.washington.edu.]