Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has given a new bioproducts processing and sciences laboratory proposed for Washington State University Tri-Cities a two-year head start.

Supporters believe the laboratory could make the Tri-Cities a leader in researching ways to turn agricultural waste into products usually made with petroleum and could boost the local agriculture and food processing industries.

"We think this is a very solid investment the state can make," said Mike Lawrence, associate director of energy science and technology at PNNL in Richland. "If we don't do it, (the Midwest) will. That's where the dollars for research will go."

Following the traditional funding method, money would need to be allocated by the Legislature for the laboratory each of its next three two-year sessions, stretching funding over six years. This summer, the WSU Board of Regents approved a plan to ask the Legislature in January for $132,000 for initial planning.

However, that step already has been completed. The national lab in Richland has finished the predesign work for the joint PNNL-WSU project with money from the Department of Energy and Battelle, which operates the lab.

Now supporters of the project are ready to ask the Legislature for $750,000 to do complete design work. If successful, they would return in two years to ask for a little more than $13 million for construction.

The project is expected to cost about $21 million for construction and $9 million for equipment. PNNL is contributing about half the combined cost of building and equipping the lab, mostly with DOE funds.

Supporters of the project will face a Legislature dealing with a $2 billion budget shortfall. But the state often has continued to pay for building projects through lean times, figuring that such efforts are part of an economic turnaround.

If money for the center is approved in the next two legislative sessions, the laboratory could open in fall 2006.

Plans call for a 66,000-square-foot building -- about 1 1/2 acres of space -- with teaching laboratories and classrooms and laboratories for PNNL researchers. It also would include a high bay to take concepts that work in the laboratory and prove they would work on a manufacturing scale.

The proposed laboratory, which would increase square footage of facilities on the campus by a third, would be built south of the Consolidated Information Center.

PNNL already is conducting research on ways to turn low-value agricultural products such as the straw left from wheat plants and peelings from processed potatoes into synthetic materials.

Now such products may be sold for a penny a pound for feed. Other waste, like cow manure that could be turned into synthetic materials in a more complex process, may cost farmers money for disposal.

Because of the chemical structure of agricultural byproducts, they can be made into synthetic materials more cheaply than materials now are made with petroleum.

Products could include plastic bottles and fiber for carpets. But in some cases, more valuable products could be made. Hulls from milled corn could yield oil with vitamin E worth $20 a pound.

"The bottom line is people can make money," said Theresa Bergsman, manager of strategic planning and integration at PNNL.

DOE is interested in the project as part of its work to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Although just 15 percent of petroleum is used in the United States for plastics and other products, bioproducts also could make the nation less dependent on petroleum for fuel.

Making fuel and bioproducts from ag waste could reduce the cost of ethanol enough to make its production practical, Bergsman said.

The proposed new laboratory at WSU is planned to rapidly translate scientific discoveries into commercial technologies.

For PNNL, it would provide much-needed space for its bioproducts program and also would educate new researchers for PNNL's program.

The project could offer the first doctorate program in the Tri-Cities, said Larry James, campus dean. Having the best science facility will attract the best faculty, he said.

That includes oenology and viticulture faculty for a wine industry program that would be included in the laboratory.

"It also will attract students," he said. "We see (bioproducts processing) as a destination program."

Students with other majors will benefit from labs equipped for biology or chemistry study, adding to existing labs designed primarily for engineering students.

The project also would give the school its first strategic partnership with the nearby national laboratory.

"This is a real key part of the future for the campus," James said.