In Search of Next-Gen Bioproducts and Fuels, DOE Invests $40M in 4 Bioenergy Research Centers

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) In Washington, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry today (July 17, 2017) announced $40 million in Department of Energy awards for the establishment of four DOE Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs), which will provide the scientific breakthroughs for a new generation of sustainable, cost-effective bioproducts and bioenergy.

The following centers were selected based on an open competition using outside peer review: the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, led by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in partnership with Michigan State University; the Center for Bioenergy Innovation, led by DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory; the Joint BioEnergy Institute, led by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation, led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The centers—each led by a DOE National Laboratory or a top university—are designed to lay the scientific groundwork for a new bio-based economy that promises to yield a range of important new products and fuels derived directly from nonfood biomass. Initial funding for the four centers will total $40 million for FY 2018, with plans for a total of five years of funding. Specific funding amounts for 2018 and beyond will be finalized as part of future federal budget processes.

In the next phase, the centers will build on this record of accomplishment and expand from a focus on biofuels to include the development of bio-based chemicals and other bio-based products. The three are joined by a fourth center, led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, with a specialty in the direct production of drop-in fuels and chemicals using plants themselves as sustainable biofactories.

In this newswave, DOE announced the $104 million Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), pending Congressional appropriation, a collaboration between Illinois’ Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) and the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology (IGB). CABBI includes 16 partner institutions. Evan H. DeLucia, the G. William Arends Professor of Plant Biology and Baum Family Director of iSEE, will serve as CABBI Director.

CABBI researchers will develop fuels and products by integrating three highly interconnected DOE priority areas:

GROWING THE RIGHT CROPS (Feedstock Development) — Led by Stephen Moose, Professor of Crop Sciences at Illinois, scientists will integrate recent advances in genomics, synthetic biology, and computational biology to increase the value of biomass crops. Feedstock researchers will use the “plants as factories” paradigm, in which biofuels, bioproducts, and foundation molecules for conversion are synthesized directly in plant stems.

TURNING PLANTS INTO FUEL (Conversion) — Led by Huimin Zhao, Steven L. Miller Chair in Chemical Engineering at Illinois, experts will further develop a versatile, automated “biofoundry” for rapidly engineering microbial strains that can efficiently produce diverse, high-value molecules such as biodiesel, organic acids, jet fuels, lubricants, and alcohols. Using the design-build-test-learn framework, research in the Conversion theme will overcome the challenges associated with driving biological systems to produce non-natural compounds.

DETERMINING THE ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC BOTTOM LINE (Sustainability) — Led by Madhu Khanna, ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at Illinois, researchers will provide an overarching framework for viewing outcomes from the Feedstocks and Conversion themes through an environmental and economic lens. Experts will design a closed-loop and integrated research program for CABBI.

Partner institutions include Brookhaven (N.Y.) National Laboratory; the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Joint Genome Institute in Berkeley, Calif; the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service in Houma, La., and Peoria, Ill.; Iowa State University; Princeton University; Mississippi State University; the University of California-Berkeley; West Virginia University; Boston University; the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Colorado State University; the University of Idaho; the University of Florida; the University of Nebraska; the Institute for Systems Biology in Seattle; and the HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology in Huntsville, Ala.

First, note the intriguing addition of the University of Illinois for “direct production of drop-in fuels and chemicals using plants themselves as sustainable biofactories” – we’ll stand by for more on what that means.

Secondly, let’s note the transition from BESC to CBI — the latter will proceed under the leadership of Gerald Tuskan, after 10 years of the Paul Gilna-led BESC,

However, one caveat. The funding here is for just one year of these BRCs. The Trump budget slashes energy research and these centers will have to compete with all the piggies at the trough in the next four budget seasons. READ MORE and MORE (Ethanol Producer Magazine) and MORE (U.S. Department of Energy) and MORE (CleanTechnica)