Ten years ago sustainability-themed business courses weren't a part of the curricula at many universities and colleges in the U.S. But now, green MBAs and coursework in sustainable business are among the fastest-growing programs in undergraduate and graduate education. Here in Maine, some of the most innovative work and research in the field is taking place at the so-called Sustainable Business Hatchery at College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor. Jay Field paid a visit.

A little over a year ago, College of the Atlantic's sustainable business program got some good news from Maine's two U.S. senators, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. The program, still in its infancy, would be getting a special grant from the federal government.

"Sustainability is all about innovation," says Jay Friedlander, who oversees COA's green business curriculum. "And so when the sustainable business program was started here about three years ago, part of what the students said they wanted, and what we agreed with, was a place to actually practice business and make it happen."

A place not unlike the scores of technology and biotechnology incubators nurturing small start-up companies at universities across the nation. The COA program had received some foundation support but not enough to launch a full-fledged incubator.

All that changed when Sens. Collins and Snowe called. COA would be getting a more than $70,000 Rural Business Enterprise Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

"Last night's dinner looks like some tuna salad, some red bell peppers, falafel, a pear," says Nick Harris, as he stands in front of a bowl of food scraps. The bowl is sitting on a table inside a chemistry lab on COA's Bar Harbor campus.

Harris is one of five students working on a start-up business this year at the Sustainable Enterprise Hatchery, the college's new sustainable venture incubator. His company, Gourmet Butanol, turns food waste into an alcohol-based, butanol fuel.

"The process is broken down into two parts. The first part works a lot like our digestive system. It's almost identical, actually. And the second part is a lot like brewing beer," Harris says.

There's a blender involved, a beaker of hot acid, another beaker of enzymes, some bacteria in an oxygen-free cannister and a big barrel---with levers, pressure gauges and valves---that looks like a keg of beer.

Right now, Harris and his partners can produce about a half-gallon of butanol a week. But they hope to secure grants this fall to buy larger equipment, with a goal of significantly ramping up production, "using the school's cafeteria food waste, as well as the food waste from different businsses around town, and closing the loop here," he says. "So actually produce enough butanol to replace all the gas and heating oil on campus, to become a fossil free campus."

The project's focus on merging sustainable innovation and renewable energy production comes at a time of tremendous growth for such initiatives across the nation.

"Just seeing what's happening here today tells me this is a good investment of our funds," says Virginia Manual, who heads the U.S. Agriculture Department's Rural Develpment division in Maine. "Because a big part of what we do, in Maine and nationally, is support renewable energy systems and development in the state."

And Manuel and her colleagues at the federal level have a strong incentive to fund projects like this one that show promise. By 2022, a new federal mandate calls for the U.S. to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuels a year to power trucks and cars across the nation.