The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a UW–Madison based research center another five years of funding to develop sustainable alternative fuels.
“The mission of the Center is to make liquid transportation fuels and chemicals. Out of non food, crap material. It’s called lignocellulosic biomass. So we call them energy crops,” explains Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center Director Tim Donohue.
“We’re developing new crops that we’ll be able to use to make fuels and chemicals without the need for fertilizer and without the need of pesticide. Both of those are huge sources of co2 emissions.”
Donohue says the work can benefit Wisconsin agriculture. “Farmers who could use abundant corn stover and leftover soybean that’s not used to produce food now and converted into fuels and chemicals.”
The U.S. Department of Energy has The center was established in 2007 and is slated to receive $27.5 million this year, bringing the lifetime awards more than $410 million and making it the largest federally funded project in UW–Madison history.