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DOE Provides $30 Million to Jump Start Bioenergy Research CentersDOE Bioenergy Research Center Investment Tops $400 Million
Washington, DC—The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced it has invested nearly $30 million in end-of-fiscal-year (2007) funds to accelerate the start-up of its three new Bioenergy Research Centers, bringing total DOE Bioenergy Research Center investment to over $400 million. The three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers—located in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Madison, Wisconsin; and near Berkeley, California—selected by DOE this June, bring together multidisciplinary teams of leading scientists to advance research needed to make cellulosic ethanol and other biofuels commercially viable on a national scale, a key part of President Bush’s Advanced Energy Initiative Twenty in Ten Plan. The $9.97 million per Center enables the three Centers to immediately begin research activities and comes in addition to the $375 million (over five years) DOE announced it would invest.
“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,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Raymond L. Orbach. “This early infusion of funds will permit the DOE Bioenergy Research Centers to get to work immediately on the basic, transformational science needed to make environmentally friendly biofuels cost-effective, increase their use for transportation, and help achieve President Bush’s goal of reducing gasoline consumption by 20 percent in 10 years.”
In late June, DOE selected its Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM), and its Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) as the lead institutions for the Centers. Each DOE Bioenergy Research Center represents a multi-institutional partnership. Altogether, seven DOE national laboratories, 18 leading universities, one nonprofit organization, and a range of private companies are involved in the effort. Last week, the Department signed a Cooperative Agreement with the University of Wisconsin and agreements with the two national laboratories, enabling the release of the FY 2007 funds.
In addition to geographic diversity, the three Centers are pursuing complementary scientific agendas. The DOE ORNL BioEnergy Sciences Center will focus on the resistance of plant fiber to breakdown into sugars and is studying the potential energy crops poplar and switchgrass. The DOE UWM Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center is studying a range of plants and, in addition to exploring plant fiber breakdown, aims to increase plant production of starches and oils, which are more easily converted to fuels. This Center also has a major focus on sustainability, examining the environmental and socioeconomic implications of moving to a biofuels economy. The DOE LBNL Joint Bioenergy Institute will concentrate on “model” crops of rice and Arabidopsis, in the search for game-changing breakthroughs in basic science, and is exploring microbial-based synthesis of fuels beyond ethanol.
The Department’s investment in the Bioenergy Research Centers contributes to the President’s Twenty in Ten Plan, which aims to increase energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing projected gasoline consumption by 20 percent in ten years through a combination of increased vehicle efficiency and use of clean, renewable fuels. This Plan mandates the use of the equivalent of 35 billions gallons of alternative and renewable fuels by 2017, and biofuels produced from biomass, such as cellulosic ethanol and non-edible portions of crops, could help reach a major portion of this goal.
As part of the President’s bold energy initiatives, just this calendar year, DOE has announced over $1 billion, subject to appropriations from Congress, in a multi-year biofuels research and development investment. This includes: the $30 million announced today; $375 million DOE allocated for these three Centers; up to $385 million for commercial-scale biorefineries; up to $200 million for pilot-scale biorefineries ; up to $23 million for ethanol research; and up to $34 million for enzymes research in support of biofuels development.
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