Himadri Pakrasi, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology and Professor of Energy, studies Cyanothece, one-celled marine cyanobacteria, which may produce renewable energy.

The vision: To establish Washington University and St. Louis as a world- wide hub for energy and environmental research, education, innovation, and action. The commitment: Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton pledged more than $55 million from the University to create a new International Center for Advanced Renewable Energy and Sustainability (I-CARES), which will catalyze and coordinate university-wide and external collaborative research in renewable energy and sustainability--including bioenergy, CO2 mitigation, and coal-related issues.

The June 2007 I-CARES announcement follows an unprecedented May event, when top leaders and researchers from premier world universities gathered on the Danforth Campus for the first International Symposium on Energy and Environment. The symposium was held under the aegis of the University's McDonnell International Scholars Academy, which recruits top graduate and professional students from its international partner univer-sities and strives to train them as future global leaders in wide-ranging disciplines, including energy and environmental studies and research. It drew the presidents and/or delegations from 19 top Asian and Middle Eastern research universities, reflecting the University's mission to address and impact world environmental issues.

I-CARES will work to foster institutional, regional, and international research on the development and production of biofuels from plant and microbial systems and the exploration of sustainable alternative energy and environmental systems and practices--both within the University and externally between Washington University and other regional research institutions, such as the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the University of Missouri-Columbia. Center research also will focus on the region's important coal resources and efforts to miti?gate carbon dioxide accumulation, improve combustion processes, and reduce emissions.

I-CARES will operate under the direction of Himadri B. Pakrasi, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology in Arts & Sciences and Professor of Energy in the School of Engineering. The University's ambitious initiative seeks to develop technologies for the production of next-generation biofuels--liquid hydrocarbon that can be produced in large volumes from plant-based sources at a low cost and in an environmentally benign manner, he says.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton (left) and a panel of international university presidents discuss world environmental issues.

"The Department of Energy (DOE) is very interested in the production of ethanol or hydrogen and other kinds of chemicals through biological processes," Pakrasi says.

Pakrasi already heads a national team of some 50 biologists, engineers, and computer scientists using $9.3 million DOE and National Science Foundation grants to study photosynthetic microbes at a holistic level. Such studies also are aimed at examining the feasibility of using such microbes as biosolar factories to produce fuels and other valuable chemicals.

These bacterial strains--isolated from the deep ocean and rice paddies in India and Taiwan--can capture sunlight and produce liquid biofuels and, at the same time, capture CO2, a process that intrigues the DOE.

"These systems-level studies will illustrate the breadth of what these organisms can do," Pakrasi says. "Then, we can pick and choose and make designer microbes that will do what we want them to do." Which could include powering cars and heating homes.

WUSTL further underscored its commitment to energy and environmental action last year by forming the Department of Energy, Environmen-tal, & Chemical Engineering--the first of its kind in the United States.

Affiliated with the Environmental Studies Program in Arts & Sciences, it focuses on energy systems, environmental engineering science, and chemical engineering in integrated, multidisciplinary, scientific education programs.

The department is headed by Pratim Biswas, the Stifel and Quinette Jens Professor.

Members of the American Bottom Conservancy and of WUSTL's Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic (IEC) meet to discuss efforts to protect Horseshoe Lake. The IEC successfully revoked a permit issued to U.S. Steel, which was dumping wastewater daily into the lake.

American Bottom Conservancy, a small, grassroots environmental group in Metro East St. Louis, Ill., knew that U.S. Steel was discharging 15 to 20 million gallons of daily wastewater--containing ammonia, cyanide, oil, grease, and heavy metals--into Horseshoe Lake, in a state park where nearby residents fished. And they knew that the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency had issued a permit for the discharge without first holding a required public hearing. But they couldn't do anything about it without an attorney--which they couldn't afford.

Law and science students from Washington University's Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic (IEC) stepped in, conducted necessary research, and filed the case on the conservancy's behalf--ultimately winning revocation of the permit.

"We are delighted, absolutely delighted," says the conservancy's Kathy Andria. "You can't appeal a permit without an attorney. Without the clinic we would not have been able to appeal, and the public would have been the losers."

The IEC provides pro bono legal and technical services to environmental and community organizations in the greater St. Louis area and beyond via interdisciplinary teams of students in engineering, environmental studies, medicine, social work, business, and law. Since the IEC's inauguration in 2000, its student teams have scored significant victories on issues relating to air and water quality, lead poisoning, environmental justice, habitat destruction, and wetlands.

Beth Mushill, LW07, and Morgan Raskin, LA07, prepared the Horseshoe Lake case for trial, which included interviews, written discovery, and depositions. Mushill also acted as lead counsel. "I grew up in Granite City, where Horseshoe Lake is located, so this was a double victory for me," Mushill says. "Not only was I able to win the case for American Bottom Conservancy, but I also had the pleasure of knowing that this decision should lead to a cleaner, more protected Horseshoe Lake."

Maxine Lipeles

Says Andria: "We are so proud of Beth and all the people who worked on the project. I can't say how much we appreciate that the clinic is involved on the Illinois side, where we desperately need pro bono work."

The IEC is the brainchild of Director Maxine Lipeles, who teaches in both the School of Law and in the Environmental Studies Program in Arts & Sciences.

"I wanted to enable students to engage in a more active form of learning," Lipeles says.

That hands-on learning also is helping the environment, both locally and nationally. For example: · Since 2001, the IEC has been working on behalf of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, addressing lead contamination in Herculaneum, Mo., where the nation's largest primary lead smelter has been operating since the 1890s. The clinic has worked on issues related to relocating families living near the smelter and on cleaning up contaminated homes, yards, and streets.

The IEC developed the Environ-mental Clearinghouse Web site, ec.wustl.edu, a confidential database of technical experts willing to work for public interest groups on environmental issues.

The IEC fought a successful two-year battle on behalf of the Sierra Club, challenging construction and expansion of coal-fired Kansas City Power and Light plants. Its work led to a March 2007 settlement, with the company making the most significant carbon-reduction commitments of any utility in the Midwest.

Jatropha plant

When Jake Schnarre, business graduate student, signed up for a practicum sponsored by the World Agricultural Forum (WAF) at the Olin Business School's Center for Experiential Learning, he thought it might give him a chance to put his undergraduate University of Missouri agriculture-systems-management degree to use. Little did he realize that his efforts--along with those of practicum colleagues Kevin Lehnbeuter, GB07, Steven Gabster, LA06, Keith McLamb, third-year law student and business graduate student, and Tom Stehl, business graduate student--might some day better millions of lives in Third World villages.

Because of their backgrounds in agriculture and science, the men joined forces to explore the feasibility of alternative biofuels, such as ethanol, in developing nations.

WAF members thought biofuels might be used as catalysts for economic growth, but envisioned large ethanol-processing facilities like those in the United States. Schnarre and his colleagues thought otherwise.

"There are a lot of underdeveloped nations that don't have the infrastructure and ability to implement large-scale projects like that," Schnarre says.

Soon their feasibility research alerted them that ethanol was but one of many possibilities for providing biofuels in remote locations. Another, more cost-effective one was the plentiful sub-Saharan plant, jatropha curcas.

They found that the seeds of the inedible hedge yielded four times the oil per acre of soybeans. And that you could run a rudimentary diesel engine eight hours a day for a year on just 22 acres of jatropha.

That engine could be used to run a grain mill, power a generator, or drive a pump to provide access to clean water, he says.

They presented their findings--which could help make remote villages energy self-sufficient, boost their economies, and impact their health--to the WAF in a Washington, D.C., meeting attended by U.N. dignitaries and executives from international agriculture corporations.

The WAF now is building a model to show how the oil is extracted and then used to power a generator, hoping to interest investors and nonprofit groups.