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GREENSBORO - N.C. A&T undergraduate Matthew Todd works up a sweat with a sharp machete, hacking down cattails that reach 7 feet tall or more. The plants surround a black lagoon filled with runoff from the nearby swine houses.

The lagoons incorporate experiments researchers at the university are working on to solve two problems: hog waste and fuel costs.

Todd is working with professor Abolghasem Shahbazi in biofuels research in A&T's biological engineering program. Todd, a Grimsley High School graduate, is optimistic, to say the least.

"I want to save the world, basically," Todd says explaining his interest in the research and tolerance for the hot work.

Shahbazi has spent much of his academic career toiling in what amounts to a long-neglected patch of research: alternative fuels. With the soaring cost of oil these days, the research field is suddenly getting a great deal of cultivation.

Todd isn't alone in helping Shahbazi. Shuangning Xiu, who recently finished her doctorate in agriculture and biological engineering at China Agricultural University, is also working with Shahbazi on the biofuels research. A Chinese immigrant, Xiu says she has seen the impact on fuel prices as demand rises in her native country and the impact all that fossil fuel use is having on the environment.

"When I heard the professors were researching in this area I thought 'wow, that's really what I want to do,'" she says.

For Shahbazi, a nearly 30-year veteran in alternative fuel research, his assistants' enthusiasm and interest is a welcome change.

Shahbazi began his career in 1983 at Pennsylvania State University. In those early years, finding funding and help for his research was difficult. The interest these days is at a point Shahbazi never thought he would see.

"We had just a little bit of funding in those days, compared to that we have lots of funding these days," he says.

Out at the research farm, Shahbazi and his assistants are experimenting with converting cellulosic plants - the cattails - into ethanol and hog manure into a heavy oil that could be used in boilers.

The cattails grow thick around the hog-waste lagoons. The tall plants absorb nitrogen and phosphorus, the two chemicals that feed the microorganisms that eat up oxygen, making water useless.

By absorbing the chemicals, the cattails purify the lagoon water enough that it could be returned to public water bodies. However, the water is eventually recycled on the research farm.

The cattails, left alone, eventually would die and fall into the lagoon.

But the A&T researchers are cutting down the plants, drying the long stalks and then, through a process of heat, pressure and chemical treatment, converting the material into ethanol.

U.S. production capacity of ethanol is at more than six billion gallons per year, the highest rate ever, according to the American Coalition for Ethanol.

The vast majority of ethanol being produced, about 95 percent, is being made from corn feedstock. That has driven corn prices to record levels.

Shahbazi believes a solution to easing corn prices without hurting ethanol production rests in wild plants, such as cattails and even grasses as well as wood chips.

"We have an abundance of supply of these materials, and they are low-cost and can provide us a local supply," of fuel he said.

It is research that is being supported from places Shahbazi is surprised by: the state.

The General Assembly last year created the Biofuels Center of North Carolina.

The private nonprofit group is funding research and development for biofuels in North Carolina. Earlier this month, the center issued more than $2.55 million in grants and loans.

Norman Smit, a spokesman for the center, said the biggest issue facing biofuels is whether companies make money with the research.

"The question is, 'Can I make 600 million gallons out of this feedstock and make it commercially viable," he said.

Shahbazi said he has always believed in alternative fuels, but for the first time in his career he feels like research might become reality on a commercial scale. And if that happens, he believes Xiu and Todd could reach their goals of leaving a lasting impact on the world.

Contact J. Brian Ewing at 373-7351 or brian.ewing@news-record.com