MANKATO — Democratic candidate for governor Matt Entenza came to Minnesota State University to talk about his plan to boost the rural Minnesota economy by investing in renewable energy.

A pair of MSU professors let Entenza know, regardless of who wins the DFL primary election and the Nov. 2 general election, that the university is already moving toward that clean energy economy. They showed off university labs that were testing the viability of using wood pellets for building heat, wood-based electrical generation, and dairy manure to produce methane fuels.

“I’ve really become convinced over the last 10 years that what you’re doing here is one of the best ways to help rural Minnesota grow,” said Entenza, a former state lawmaker and founder of the state think-tank Minnesota 2020.

The “here” Entenza was talking about was a section of a corrugated metal shed five or six miles south of Mankato. The space, rented from a building contractor whose business has slowed down because of the economic recession, is a temporary laboratory of the International Renewable Energy Technology Institute.

Retired MSU Prof. John Frey, the interim director of IRETI, rented the space because the Institute’s new home on campus is under construction and won’t be done until late September. The work IRETI is doing couldn’t wait, Frey said.

In the shed were expensive pieces of equipment to measure emissions from wood-burning furnaces. There was a machine that calculates how many calories of energy different types of wood pellets generate and the volume and variety of chemicals coming out of the flue.

There were stations set up to measure how the little furnaces impact the buildings they would be placed in, including the radiant heat they emit and how closely they could safely be placed near a wall. There was a machine that would essentially melt wood to its basic elements, using the released gases to fuel an electric generator.

“We started putting it together in January, and we’re just about ready to roll,” said Frey of the lab.

Much of the technology comes from Sweden and other European countries that are far ahead of the United States in developing clean-burning technology fueled by wood pellets. The lab constitutes IRETI’s combustible solid biomas unit. Other units focus on biogas, fuels generated from cellulose digesters, and wind and solar energy.

In every case, IRETI aims to connect research to commercial markets, working with existing companies and entrepreneurs with ideas they want to test.

More than a third of the energy consumed in the United States is used to heat and cool buildings, a share that tops even transportation consumption, Frey said. So renewable fuel alternatives such as wood pellets could be an important part of any national effort to reduce dependence on foreign fuels.

At another lab in MSU’s Trafton Science Center, a table-top device can simultaneously test the 15 different concoctions for their potential to produce methane gas through anaerobic digestion. The ingredients in the recipes — along with various enzymes — vary from cheese whey (a waste product for dairy processors) to dairy manure to human waste to various types of plant cellulose.

“We want to be there to serve the entrepreneur with an idea,” Frey said.

Entenza said that, if he’s elected governor, he wants to target state investments in the same way. Minnesota’s economy spends about $10 billion a year to buy electricity and another $10 billion for liquid fuels, he said. Most of it goes to energy producers outside the state.

If some of that revenue can end up in the hands of Minnesota-based renewable energy businesses, the result will be more jobs and a more vibrant economy, according to Entenza.

“We could potentially create new billion-dollar industries, and they’d be based in southern Minnesota,” he said.

Conserving energy is as important as creating renewable energy, he said, because it will allow Minnesota businesses to invest the savings in productivity and growth rather than sending it to out-of-state power companies.

On that side of the equation, Associate Professor Patrick Tebbe talked of an MSU initiative that brought local architects, construction firms and contractors together to talk about the opportunities and challenges of creating more energy-efficient buildings. The classes were offered both in Mankato and at the university’s Edina branch.

Entenza, who’s running against House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher and former Sen. Mark Dayton for the DFL nomination, said the work being done at MSU is a reminder of why its important to maintain the state’s investment in higher education even in tough budget times.

“To make all these other things work, you’ve got to have quality higher education,” he said.