Jason Nelson Audio Clips: 
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Jason Nelson is the special projects manager for the Biotechnology Center. One of those projects occupies most of his time: staffing and supporting the fledging Biofuels Center of North Carolina.
The non-profit corporation will be headquartered at the newly established North Carolina Biofuels Campus in Oxford on the site of the former U.S. Department of Agriculture tobacco research facility.
Creating the Biofuels Center was one mandate from the "North Carolina's Strategic Plan for Biofuels Leadership" a document calling for the development of a biofuels industry in the state. The plan's organizers propose that by 2017, 10 percent of liquid fuels sold in North Carolina will come from biofuels grown and produced within the state.
Nelson served as the project coordinator during the nearly yearlong writing process that brought 75 citizens and agency representatives together to guide North Carolina's biofuels development.
In this interview with Boris Hartl, Nelson discusses national models of biofuels development, the strategic plan's immediate objectives and whether genes hold the key to another fuel source.
What national models were followed in creating the Biofuels Center?
Although we started this endeavor from scratch, there is one model out there for this type of endeavor, the North Carolina Biotechnology Center. It is a centralized, coordinating entity responsible for a sustained public commitment toward building a community, and that was done with biotechnology and life sciences over 25 years ago. We are attempting to do the same thing with biofuels.
Are there other similar models of biofuels development in the more established ethanol-producing regions of the Midwest and South?
Not that we are aware of. We believe with this endeavor, the strategic plan and the launch of the Biofuels Center, this is first agency of its kind in the country targeted toward building a biofuels industry.
The document, "Fueling North Carolina's Future: North Carolina's Strategic Plan for Biofuels Leadership," calls for biofuels to constitute 10 percent of all fuel sold in North Carolina by 2017. What are the more immediate goals addressed in the plan?
That remains our primary goal. Outside of that, the plan itself is operating at such a high level that it doesn't address more near-term goals. I think once the Biofuels Center is launched and hits the ground running over the next two to three years, more targeted goals will be perhaps established.
Instead of following Iowa and Illinois' lead and develop corn-based ethanol, North Carolina is following another approach. The state will concentrate on developing fuel from sources that include switchgrass, miscanthus and algae.
You can possibly add trees to the mix. North Carolina State University researchers think modifying the genes in poplar trees will lead to a more efficient source of biofuels. Will this be a viable fuel option in your opinion?
There are a number of biomass sources and crops that are gaining a lot of interest in North Carolina. If you look at some of the numbers and the agriculture and the agronomy of the state, for example, Iowa is comparably the same size as North Carolina, but grows seven times more soy beans and 17 times more corn.
We are not a state that can be very competitive in terms of landing an industry reliant on starch-based crops at this point. We have to look at alternative means and look to opportunities when we can use our existing landscape and maximize our resources and yields to give us the greatest potential we can have in biodiesel and ethanol.
Will biomass constitute the majority of biofuels developed in North Carolina?
I think it's too soon to tell. One of the goals of the Biofuels Center is to engage a lot of work with the science and research community as well as farmers and the forestry industry. The aim is to look at a range of crops and identify which of those crops will give us the greatest yields while at the same time being good environmental stewards.
The Biotechnology Center has been lauded for supporting start-up companies through low-interest loans and grants. Will the Biofuels Center offer similar assistance to companies producing renewable resources?
There will be some assistance provided community wide in various shapes and forms. The Biofuels Center's board of directors as well as the initial staff will work to shape what the assistance will look like. Right now, it is too early to tell specifically what kind of assistance we will provide throughout the state.