Madison, Wisconsin
June 26, 2007
A consortium of universities, U.S.
Department of Energy (DOE) national laboratories and businesses
led by the University of
Wisconsin-Madison to explore the vast potential of bioenergy
was awarded one of three major new DOE bioenergy research
centers, it was announced today (June 26).
The award, in the neighborhood of $125 million during five
years, establishes the DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
(GLBRC), where scientists and engineers will conduct basic
research toward a suite of new technologies to help convert
cellulosic plant biomass - cornstalks, wood chips and perennial
native grasses - to sources of energy for everything from cars
to electrical power plants.
The other two DOE Bioenergy Research Centers are the DOE
BioEnergy Research Center, led by the Oak Ridge National
Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and the DOE Joint BioEnergy
Institute, led by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in
Berkeley, Calif.
"These centers will provide the transformational science needed
for bioenergy breakthroughs to advance President Bush's goal of
making cellulosic ethanol cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012
and assist in reducing America's gasoline consumption by 20
percent in 10 years," Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman says.
"The collaborations of academic, corporate, and national
laboratory researchers represented by these centers are truly
impressive, and I am very encouraged by the potential they hold
for advancing America's energy security."
"The funding of this center provides a unique opportunity for
Wisconsin and the Midwest to be leaders in the process that
transforms the way we produce and use energy," says Tim Donohue,
the UW-Madison professor of bacteriology who, with Michigan
State University (MSU) professor Ken Keegstra, helped
orchestrate the initiative to secure the new award.
The new grant, the largest formal grant in the university's
history, is part of a larger Wisconsin Bioenergy Initiative, a
statewide effort focused on the development of fuel and energy
resources from non-food sources in ways that promote regional
economic growth in the context of good environmental
stewardship.
"We need to develop an energy future that's good for our
environment and good for our agriculture and forestry-based
economies in both the short and long run," says Molly Jahn, dean
of UW-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. "This
award from the Department of Energy will advance our ability to
contribute to our energy supply in new and very exciting ways
that could be fundamental for our future."
The new DOE center, which will be based in Madison, will bring
together scientists from Wisconsin; MSU; Lucigen, a Madison-area
biotechnology company; the Pacific Northwest and Oak Ridge
National Laboratories; and the University of Florida, among
others.
"If we are going to start using plants in significant ways
beyond food, there are a lot of issues that come into play that
we need to figure out," says Keegstra, who is an MSU
distinguished professor of plant biology and biochemistry and
molecular biology. "Sustainability, competition for food,
environmental issues - our universities already have a head
start in studying these from many angles. There is a tremendous
compatibility between UW-Madison and MSU, and we have assembled
with others a strong and exciting partnership."
Wisconsin and the Great Lakes region will be "ground zero" for
research efforts aimed at clearing the technological bottlenecks
that prevent plant biomass from being used efficiently as a
source of energy, Donohue explains.
"In the last 100 years, we've gone through a significant
fraction of the oil it took hundreds of millions of years to
create," says Donohue, "so we have to come up with some new
strategies."
The Great Lakes region and the American Midwest, Donohue notes,
represent the third-largest economy in the world (after the U.S.
as a whole and Japan), have a rich scientific and technological
legacy, have ample corporate muscle and harbor one of the
world's great concentrations of biomass in its agricultural and
northern forest landscapes.
"We have that biomass on the land in the form of cellulose
already," says Donohue. "We don't have the ability to process it
for energy now. Cellulose is a part of the plant we can't get
to."
Cellulose makes up the walls of plant cells and is the main
constituent of plant tissues and fibers. It is used to make
paper and textiles, but vast quantities of material containing
now unusable cellulose - ranging from cornfield stubble to paper
pulp waste - are readily at hand. What's more, the new center
will enable research into the use of switchgrass, a native
perennial that some view as an important and environmentally
friendly source of cellulose for energy.
The research portfolio of the DOE GLBRC will focus on breeding
new varieties of biomass plants, developing new processing
techniques and agents from microbes for breaking down cellulose,
improving the microbial and chemical processes that convert
biomass to energy products, providing an environmental and
economic framework for sustaining the biomass-to-fuel pipeline,
and integrating new technologies - including genomics and new
computational methods - into bioenergy research.
At least 12 new faculty will be hired in the area of bioenergy
at UW-Madison and MSU. The proposal for the new center,
according to Jahn, drew strong support from Wisconsin Gov. Jim
Doyle, Michigan Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm, various state
agencies, Congressional delegations from Wisconsin and Michigan,
and Midwest businesses and utilities.
UW System campuses and Wisconsin companies, Jahn notes, also
stand to gain from this award, both directly and through state
support for Wisconsin's energy future.
"Our proposal has been brought forward by world-class
scientists, and our concept for this center was judged
innovative and far-reaching," says Jahn. "But we know that the
support from Gov. Doyle, who is providing key leadership in the
state and regionally, and state agencies including the
Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, the
Public Service Commission and the Office of Energy Independence
were also critical for our success. This kind of big science is
a team sport, and we have a great team based in a state poised
to be a leader in innovative and sustainable renewable energy
technologies."
Both the new center and the larger Wisconsin Bioenergy
Initiative, Jahn notes, will put Wisconsin and its partners in
the vanguard of bioenergy research nationally and
internationally.
"This is very exciting news for all of us," says Jahn. "We now
have the means to provide key leadership as we shape the energy
future of our country, make our economy and communities
stronger, and forge new knowledge. We can't wait to get
started."
For information about the three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers,
please see
http://www.science.doe.gov/News_Information/News_Room/2007/Bioenergy_Research_Centers/index.htm.
RELATED RELEASES
- U.S.
Department of Energy selects three bioenergy research centers
for $375 million in federal funding
- UC Davis is partner in new $125 million
federal bioenergy research center
-
$125 million
bioenergy initiative powered by Midwest ag
industry, Michigan State University
research |
|
