Energy Department Announces Up to $7 Million for the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and Vehicle Technologies Office are awarding up to $7 million to eight universities to accelerate the introduction of affordable, scalable, and sustainable high-performance fuels for use in high-efficiency, low-emission engines. Under the Co-Optimization of Fuels and Engines (Co-Optima) initiative, these projects will help maximize energy savings and on-road vehicle performance, while dramatically reducing transportation-related petroleum consumption and harmful emissions.

Energy Department Announces Six Projects for Pilot- and Demonstration-Scale Manufacturing of Biofuels, Bioproducts, and Biopower

Six projects will help develop and execute plans for the manufacturing of advanced or cellulosic biofuels, bioproducts, refinery compatible intermediates, and/or biopower in a domestic pilot- or demonstration-scale integrated biorefinery through funding awards announced on December 28, 2016. DOE, on behalf of BETO, is providing up to $12.9 million for these projects to utilize thermochemical, algal, and hybrid conversion technologies to generate operational data required to enable the industry to build future commercial-scale facilities.

Energy Department Announces Up to $8 Million to Develop Algae-Based Biofuels

BETO is pleased to announce a funding opportunity of up to $8 million for innovative technologies and approaches to help advance bioenergy and bioproducts from algae. Selected projects will support the development of advanced biofuels and valuable co-products from algal biomass by focusing on breakthroughs in advanced biology as well as biology-based tools.

Envisioning the Economic and Environmental Outcomes of Tripling the U.S. Bioeconomy

With the biomass production potential and its important role well-established in the 2016 Billion-Ton Report, members of DOE and the U.S. Department of Agriculture formed an interagency team and recently published the article, “An Assessment of the Potential Products and Economic and Environmental Impacts Resulting from a Billion Ton Bioeconomy.” Their analysis illustrated that tripling the current use of biomass in the U.S. economy to include new biomass resources has the potential to generate $260 billion in direct revenue and 1.1 million direct jobs, while reducing life-cycle greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector by about 25%.

BETO Launches Multi-Lab Consortium to Advance Separations Technology

When converting biomass to biofuel, separation processes can represent up to 70% of the processing costs. In an effort to move cost-effective, high-performing separations technologies to market, BETO announced the establishment of the Bioenergy Separations Consortium (BioESep)—a consortium of eight DOE national laboratories leading coordinated research aimed at developing cost-effective and highly efficient separation technologies that minimize carbon loss.

Regional Feedstock Partnership Report Highlights Work to Enable the Billion-Ton Vision

BETO partnered with the Sun Grant Initiative and Idaho National Laboratory to co-author a report entitled Regional Feedstock Partnership Summary Report: Enabling the Billion-Ton Vision. A wide range of stakeholders will benefit from the Regional Feedstock Partnership’s work—farmers can gain further knowledge about energy crops, companies building biorefineries that rely on corn stover now have more yield-specific information, and students trained through the Regional Feedstock Partnership have the knowledge to become a ready workforce for biomass production, logistics, and conversion. Because of the information gained through the Regional Feedstock Partnership, many of the projections set forth in the Billion-Ton Study that were once thought by some to be optimistic have been proven reasonably realistic.

Register Today for the 2017 Project Peer Review!

BETO is hosting the 2017 Project Peer Review on March 6–9, 2017, in Denver, Colorado. Register now! Join us for this opportunity to learn more about innovation in bioenergy technologies and the BETO project portfolio. Lodging is available at the Sheraton Denver Downtown. View the the 2017 Peer Review web page for more information and to see the latest agenda.

Past and Upcoming Events with BETO Representation

• National Science Teachers Association Area Conference; Dec. 1–3, 2016; Columbus, Ohio
• 26th Western Photosynthesis Conference; Jan. 5–8, 2017; Daniel Fishman, Amanda Berry; Marshall, California
• 2017 Project Peer Review; March 6–10, 2017; Denver, Colorado
• Algae Testbed Public-Private Partnership Workshop on Routine Measurement and Biochemical Analysis of Microalgal Cultures; March 13–17, 2017; Mesa, Arizona
• Bioeconomy 2017: Domestic Resources for a Vibrant Future; July 11–12, 2017; Arlington, Virginia.

To view past Monthly News Blasts, visit the BETO Newsletter page.