A team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has won a bid from the Dept. of Energy for a $125 million bioenergy research center that will put the Knoxville-Oak Ridge Innovation Valley at the forefront of biofuels research and production.
The Bioenergy Science Center will be located on the ORNL campus in a new facility funded by the state and owned by the University of Tennessee. One of three funded from more than 20 proposals, the center will employ the interdisciplinary expertise of the team's partners in biology, engineering and agricultural science and commercialization to develop processes for converting plants, including switchgrass and poplar trees, into fuels.
ORNL Director Jeff Wadsworth said the DOE project "will be a critical part of America's efforts over the next decade to develop alternatives to fossil fuels. I am proud that Oak Ridge will continue to play a leading role in addressing one of the nation's biggest scientific challenges."
In addition to ORNL, the DOE Bioenergy Science Center partners are the University of Tennessee, Dartmouth College, the University of Georgia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and three companies-ArborGen in Summervifle, SC; Diversa (now Verenium Corp.) in San Diego; and Mascoma in Cambridge, MA. The team also includes seven individual researchers from across the country. ORNL's Martin Keller will serve as director of the new research center.
The Innovation Valley is already home to the National Transportation Research Center, which is part of the newly formed Automotive Research Alliance (see last month's NewsBreak column). For more information on the DOE Bioenergy Science Center, visit www.bioenergycenter.org.
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Source: Motor
