Cenusa Bioenergy Receives $25 Million Grant from USDA
by Kelly Madsen (IowaStateDaily.com) The Iowa State University-led Cenusa Bioenergy project works to develop a biofuel with both a Midwestern and environmental focus.
Through a five-year, $25 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the project will develop a holistic plan to create an advanced biofuel industry.
“We will use marginal farmlands to grow perennial grasses,” said Ken Moore, Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor of agriculture and life sciences and primary investigator on the project. “These native grasses — big bluestem, Indian grass and switchgrass — will serve as the biomass sources for a drop in biofuel.”
Biomass from the grasses will be processed into bio-oil through pyrolysis, which is a conversion process currently being developed at Iowa State’s Bioeconomy Institute in collaboration with the Cenusa Bioenergy project.
…There are nine research objectives: feedstock development, sustainable production, feedstock logistics, system performance, feedstock conversion, markets and distribution, health and safety, education, extension and outreach.
“Over the next five years, we should be able to develop the knowledge and expertise necessary to create a fuel system for marginal lands in the Midwest,” Moore said.
The study began in August 2011 and will be conducted in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Vermont, Idaho and Nebraska. READ MORE and MORE (Iowa State University, includes VIDEO)
CenUSA Bioenergy videos/webinars are available on YouTube’s CenUSA Bioenergy Channel and on our Vimeo CenUSApage, or you can just jump right in and watch directly from our site by clicking on the title links below. If you have any questions regarding our videos/webinars, drop us an email at cenusa@iastate.edu.
