The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Washington, D.C., USA, this week jointly announced up to $33 million in funding for biomass research and development. The funding will support projects and processes that produce advanced biofuels, bioenergy, and high-value biobased products. Advanced biofuels produced from these projects are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by a minimum of 50%, as determined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Proposed projects must also integrate all three technical areas addressed by the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, namely feedstocks development, biofuels, and biobased products development, and biofuels development analysis. Pre-applications are due on June 7. More information is available in the DOE press release and the online government funding opportunity announcement.
DOE also has released a new video that showcases how cellulosic biofuel technologies can help decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil, spur growth in the domestic biofuels industry, and provide new revenue opportunities to farmers in many rural areas of the country. Shot at a harvesting equipment demonstration in Emmetsburg, Iowa, the video highlights a new way of producing ethanol from the cellulose fibers in corn cobs, not from the corn kernels. The technology generates a new opportunity for farmers to harvest and sell the cobs that they would normally leave in the field. To date, DOE has committed more than $1 billion to 27 cost-shared biorefinery projects. The video is available on YouTube.
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