DOE Spends $36 Million For Biofuels

The Department of Energy will distribute up to $36 million to six small-scale projects for development of drop-in advanced biofuels—the kind that integrate into the existing fuel infrastructure—and other biobased chemicals. The projects aim to improve the economics and efficiency of biological and chemical processes that convert nonfood biomass feedstocks into replacements for petroleum-based feedstocks, products, and fuels. Virent, Genomatica, and Texas Engineering Experiment Station are among the funding recipients. Virent will get up to $13.4 million to create a process that cost-effectively converts a cellulosic biomass feedstock into a hydrocarbon mixture for blending into jet fuel. With support of up to $5 million, Genomatica will focus on an engineered organism that converts cellulosic sugars into the industrial chemical 1,4-butanediol. For up to $2.3 million, Texas Engineering Experiment Station will develop chemical and mechanical processing steps for pretreating cellulosic biomass feedstocks to ease their conversion to a variety of biofuels.