Friday, December 19, 2008

Inside Public Policy

Maine’s challenges and opportunities

The challenges that we face in Maine have many of the elements facing the nation — rising unemployment, tight credit, foreclosures. However, Maine has another challenge: Brunswick Naval Air Station is starting to close. The good news is that we have been planning for the closure. The bad news is that the impact on retailers and the housing market will exacerbate an already difficult situation.

In these challenging times, the state continues to invest in R&D, believing that innovation and entrepreneurship are the economic development engines that will fuel any recovery.

Last year, voters approved a $50 million economic development bond that is being implemented through the Maine Technology Asset Fund. In 2008, almost $30 million was awarded to 14 companies, universities and research institutions in seven targeted technology sectors. One award to Bar Harbor Biotechnology Inc. allowed the company to buy equipment to produce cutting-edge molecular profiling products, and to add employees. We expect to award the remaining $20 million by June.

The legislature appropriated new funds for investments in existing or emerging clusters. The Cluster Initiative Program will support Maine’s tech sectors by improving the effectiveness of their infrastructure and connections among firms, service providers, laboratories and educational institutions.

Maine’s plan for economic development also calls for investment in the “green economy.” We believe that being green is in Maine’s DNA, and opportunities abound from ecotourism to increased interest in eating locally.

The biggest opportunity is in clean tech. This segment is growing exponentially and is viewed by many as the next industrial revolution following computers, the Internet and biotech. This is a major economic development opportunity to create R&D and manufacturing jobs in Maine. Our researchers and entrepreneurs are active in many segments in clean tech.

Researchers at the University of Maine Forest Bioproducts Research Initiative are converting woody biomass from sustainable forests into cellulose-based products such as ethanol. In 2008, a partnership involving the university won a grant of up to $30 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to design, build and operate a small-scale biorefinery that will produce ethanol, acetic acid and other by-products along with paper pulp at an existing mill.

Another opportunity is offshore wind power. There are a potential 100,000 megawatts of wind energy that could be tapped in the Gulf of Maine, mostly in deep water.
However, to fully harness the Maine opportunity, new technologies will have to be developed and the key to many technology hurdles is lighter materials — composites. The Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center at the University of Maine is developing experimental wind turbines, for instance, and other partners are working on floating platforms.

Maine researchers and entrepreneurs are also at work on tidal power (Ocean Renewable Power Co. has an experimental tidal turbine in the water in Eastport), plastics from potatoes, and biofuels from algae.

Maine will host EnergyOcean 2009, an international conference, and announce the Governor’s Task Force on Ocean Energy’s recommendations on technical development, wind-power-related economic development, tidal and wave power, and potential oil and gas exploration on the continental shelf.

Maine is poised for  the opportunities in clean tech, and through them, move our economy back on solid ground.

 

Catherine Renault is director of the Office of Innovation, Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, and Science Advisor to the Governor.