$30 million more for bioenergy research centers from the DOE

The money just keeps on flowing from the U.S. Department of Energy to alternative energy companies. If we're just talking about Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs), the DOE has invested over $400 million (over five years), now that $30 million in new funding was announced yesterday. Those BRCs are at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Madison, Wisconsin; and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory near Berkeley, California. BRCs are responsible for a lot of the cellulosic ethanol and other biofuel research is going on, especially work to make it commercially viable on a national scale. We're talking about studying plant fibers breaking down into sugars, the ethanol potential of poplar trees and switchgrass, turning rice into biofuel and "exploring microbial-based synthesis of fuels beyond ethanol." If only the DOE could fund a time machine to get these technologies ready now.

[Source: DOE]