Berkeley Lab Group Wins Extra Funds for Biofuel Research

A group headed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory received an extra $10 million Monday to jump-start research on biofuels at a center established in July with a $125 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The Berkeley lab is working with a number of research institutions at a facility in Emeryville to develop affordable biofuels. It is one of three groups throughout the country to receive the federal grant to further research of alternative fuel sources.

The research group consists of the Berkeley lab, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, UC Berkeley, UC Davis and Stanford University.

According to chemical engineering professor Harvey Blanch, who works at the center, the extra $10 million will allow researchers to delve in sooner than predicted.

“It will sort of get things off and running a little more quickly. In part, it will enable us to move into facilities sooner,” he said.

The Bay Area center has now received a total of $135 million from the energy department, as part of an effort to produce cost-competitive cellulosic ethanol by 2012.

The department’s investment in the bioenergy research centers is a core piece of President Bush’s Twenty in Ten Plan, which aims to reduce projected gasoline consumption by 20 percent in ten years.

According to a statement released by the department, the Berkeley lab will be focusing on the development of various energy crops and the chemical synthesis of fuels beyond ethanol.

The other two centers, one in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and one in Madison, Wis., will be focusing research on energy crops and methods of production.

Raymond L. Orbach, the under secretary for science at the Department of Energy, said in a statement that the extra funds, which were given to all three centers, would enable research to begin quickly.

“This early infusion of funds will permit the Bioenergy Research Centers to get to work immediately,” he said in the statement.

The federal grant followed a $500 million award to the UC Berkeley campus from oil company BP announced in February, which will establish a bioenergy research facility at the Berkeley lab.

The $125 million institute will be focused specifically on biofuel research and further development of a Joint BioEnergy Institute in Emeryville.

“If successful, the biofuel industry could grow to about a billion dollars a year, mimicking gasoline,” Blanch said.

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