DOE, Agriculture Department Fund Bioenergy Crop Research
DOE and the USDA announced on August 11 that they have awarded 10 grants totaling $12.2 million to spur research into growing biofuel and bioenergy crops.
The 10 projects are in California, Colorado, Illinois, Florida, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia. The investments are part of a broader administration effort to develop domestic renewable energy and advanced biofuels.
Overall, the projects are designed to improve special crops to be grown for biofuels-including selected trees and grasses-by increasing their yield, quality, and ability to adapt to extreme environments. Researchers will rely on the most advanced techniques of modern genomics to develop breeding and other strategies to improve the crops. The research will be conducted on poplar trees and three grasses-switchgrass, Miscanthus and Brachypodium-among other plants.
The potential benefits of this research range from decreasing oil imports to increasing options for American farmers. Because these crops will be optimized to tolerate conditions such as drought and poor soils, they can be grown on marginal lands unsuitable for food crops, thereby avoiding competition with food production. See the DOE press release and the project descriptions .
Also on August 11, DOE reported that a team of researchers at its BioEnergy Science Center have pinpointed the exact, single gene that controls ethanol production capacity in a microorganism. This discovery could be the missing link in developing biomass crops that produce higher concentrations of ethanol at lower costs. BESC is led by DOE's Oak Ridge National Lab and is one of three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers. See the DOE press release.
Billion-Ton Update on U.S. Homegrown Energy Resources
Biofuel jobs could be coming to a community near you, according to a collaborative report released on August 10 by DOE that details the huge potential of U.S.-produced biomass.
Thanks to research from scientists and engineers from across industry, government, and several universities, the 2011 U.S. Billion-Ton Update: Biomass Supply for a Bioenergy and Bioproducts Industry report offers a glimpse of a clean energy economy made up of a significant portion of sustainably produced biofuels.
The 2011 Billion-Ton report is a follow-up to the original 2005 report that concluded the US has the ability to annually produce a billion dry tons of biomass for biofuels, biopower, and bioproducts. The August 10 report-a joint effort by DOE, its national labs, and USDA -predicts that agricultural and forest lands from across the country can sustainably produce over a billion tons of biomass annually, all by developing underutilized land resources and all while still meeting forecasted demands for food, feed, and fiber resources. See the Energy Blog post.
DOE Finalizes $102M Loan Guarantee to Maine Wind Project
DOE announced on August 16 that it's finalized a $102 million loan guarantee to Record Hill Wind, LLC for a wind farm in Maine.
The loan guarantee, in conjunction with an investment by Yale University's endowment, will support the Record Hill Wind project, which consists of a 50.6 megawatt (MW) wind plant, an eight-mile transmission line, and associated interconnection equipment near the town of Roxbury, Maine. Developed and managed by Wagner Wind Energy I, LLC of New Hampshire and Independence Wind, LLC of Maine, the project will provide will create 200 construction jobs.
The Record Hill Wind project will consist of 22 turbines and new transmission lines to interconnect with Central Maine Power, the local utility.
The turbines will be installed with innovative turbine load-control technology, a system of sensors and processing software that allows them to generate electricity under turbulent conditions, rather than shut down. The system is also expected to reduce wear-and-tear on the turbines, reduce operation and management costs, and preserve the lifetime of the turbine components.
DOE's Loan Programs Office has issued loans or loan guarantees, or has offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling more than $40 billion to support 42 clean energy projects across the US. See the
DOE press release and the
Loans Program Office website.
