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Graduate student Rory Jara examines the liquor extracted from hardwood pulp, which contains complex sugars that will be fermented to produce an ethanol extract, at the University of Maine on Monday. The laboratory has a patent pending on the process.

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Sarah Walton loads an extractor vessel with chips of hardwood that will be pressure-cooked to yield an extract of complex sugars, called hemicellulose, for fermentation into ethanol. Researchers hope to refine a large-scale method of production that would be based at paper mills.

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Sarah Walton, a graduate student at the University of Maine, takes a sample from a fermentor during the process of making ethanol from hardwood pulp Monday.

"It's a new way of doing business," said Hemant Pendse, chairman of the chemical and biological engineering department at the university's Orono campus. "We have proven this technology in the lab."

Encouraging such research is one aspect of energy legislation the Senate began debating last week. The bill could fail because it addresses contentious issues such as setting new standards for vehicle fuel efficiency. But encouraging renewable fuels, such as ethanol and wind power, is at the heart of the proposal.

"I think there are a lot of other ways people can produce energy than fossil fuels," said Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., chairman of the Energy Committee.

Maine is a leader in the development of wind energy in New England, and the bill is seen as a chance to accelerate the development of wind farms.

Members of Maine's congressional delegation also are pushing for standards in the bill that would encourage more wind power. And the state's leaders see similar potential for developing ethanol from trees.

The 2005 energy bill set the first federal requirement for the production of ethanol at 5.4 billion gallons per year. The pending bill would boost that figure to 8.5 billion gallons next year and 15 billion gallons in 2015.

Corn is the primary source of ethanol, and the ethanol requirement has encouraged what is considered the biggest corn crop in 60 years this year.

But Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is proposing an amendment calling for putting $275 million over five years into producing what is called cellulosic ethanol from wood. To date, Energy Department research into ethanol sources has focused on corn, sugarcane and switchgrass.

"My concern is that we need to look at biomass projects that have a greater chance to reduce greenhouse gas emissions than corn does," Collins said. "Yet all of the subsidies and research dollars seems to be biased toward corn-based ethanol."

Her goal is to create four to six experimental programs, for which the University of Maine could compete. The studies will consider all aspects of the various fuels, such as the costs of growing the plants and the emissions they create. For example, corn-based ethanol is costly to produce and boosts greenhouse gases when burned.

"Corn-based ethanol helps decrease our reliance on foreign oil, but it is not particularly environmentally friendly," Collins said. "Other plant-based energy sources have far-greater potential to not only reduce our reliance on foreign oil, but also to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions."

At a Capitol news conference last week, Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle described how his state went from producing no corn- based ethanol four years ago to 252 million gallons this year and a projected 400 million gallons next year.

But Doyle, a Democrat, also described his state as the country's No. 1 producer of fine paper, and said research should continue on wood-based ethanol. "We want to support research like this," he said.

Bob Dineen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, said the 2005 ethanol requirement spurred planting 90 million acres of corn for the largest expected crop since World War II. He said a boost in spending would spur the use of switchgrass, wood and other plants to create what is called cellulosic ethanol.

Paper mills routinely burn half their forest product to generate steam for power. But the University of Maine is exploring a different kind of energy with $10 million from the National Science Foundation.

Pendse said the laboratory has a patent pending on a process that involves treating wood with heat and pressure, then adding a chemical, to separate the potential fuel – called hemicellulose – before the wood is pulped.

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