The Department of Energy announced that it would continue to fund its three bioenergy research centres for another five years. The funding is subject to congressional appropriations. Here are the details. Source: Yahoo News
The three centers include the BioEnergy Research Center led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in partnership with Michigan State University, and the Joint BioEnergy Institute led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
The centers were established in 2007 and have produced more than 1100 peer-review publications and over 400 invention disclosures and/or patent applications, the Department of Energy stated.
They were initially granted an investment of up to $375 million by the Bush administration with the intention of accelerating basic research in the development of cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels as part of President Bush’s Twenty in Ten initiative, which sought to reduce US gas consumption by 20% in 10 years, the department reported in 2007.
The centers were to be supported by multidisciplinary teams of top scientists with a major focus of understanding how to re-engineer biological processes to develop new, more efficient methods of converting the cellulose in plant material into ethanol or other biolfuels.
Later in 2007, an additional $30 million was invested into the centres to accelerate their start-up, according to the department. Then-Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach stated that “for the sake of both our nation’s energy security and the health of our environment, we need major alternatives to imported oil and fossil fuels, and we need them soon.”
“Developing the next generation of American biofuels will enhance our national energy security, expand the domestic biofuels industry, and produce new clean energy jobs,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
Chu added that the research would help American farmers and create new opportunities for wealth creation in rural communities, while reducing the country’s reliance on foreign oil.
Each center is funded at a rate of $25 million a year, the department reported, and the next five years will be spent focusing on developing new lines of research and “accelerating the transformation of scientific breakthroughs into new technologies that can transition to the marketplace.”
