NEVADA - Two Republican candidates for statewide office Wednesday stressed the need to look beyond renewable fuels for new bio-based products to grow the state's economy.
      U.S. Rep Jim Nussle, the sole Republican gubernatorial candidate, and Milo farmer Karey Claghorn, one of three Republicans running for Secretary of Agriculture, pushed for stronger support for cutting-edge research into new bio-based products while touring the Becon Energy Center in Nevada.
      "We need to continually be at the front of research and development (in this field)," Nussle said.
      Nussle's visit came one day after both he and President Bush said at a fundraiser in Des Moines there was a critical need to push for a reduction of foreign oil sources to fuel U.S. industries.
       Nussle said he hopes to keep Iowa at the forefront of biomass research as a method of reducing the need for petroleum and for future economic development.
      Becon Energy Center Director Floyd Barwig said processing corn stover, the left-over material in fields, into new products or chemicals has the potential to add billions of dollars to the state's economy.
      According to Iowa State University's Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, about half the stover left in fields can be harvested without major environmental damage, which would yield about 24 million tons.
      Certain chemicals made from stover can yield about 2 cents per pound on the open market, which could generate about $27 billion for the state's economy, Barwig said.
      "There's all kinds of dimensions to this," he said.
      Claghorn said as the renewable fuels industry grows, it opens many of the doors for new research techniques such as pyrolysis, where feedstocks, such as oats, are turned into liquids through a special heating process. A commercial application already is used to turn hickory woodchips into liquid smoke flavoring used in barbecues.
      Claghorn said it is important to help promote these new research opportunities to the market for further development.
      "The state has a vested interest to fund these centers," she said.
      The center was established in 1998 by the Iowa Legislature to look into new techniques to process biomass, or materials from biological sources, into new products. The center operates on a mixture of state and federal funding.
      Other states are now investing heavily into biomass research, as well. Both California and New York's energy commissions have set up programs much larger than Iowa's, Barwig said.

Josh Nelson can be reached
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