DOE, USDA Hand Out $24M in Biomass Grants

GreenTechMedia.com
Jeff St. John November 13, 2009 at 6:53 PM

The Department of Energy and the Department of Agriculture gave out $24 million in biomass research grants on Friday to boost research ranging from more efficient ways to turn biomass into fuel, chemicals and energy to better breeds of switchgrass and other feedstocks.

Friday's grants ranged in size from $1 million to $4.2 million, and most of it -$19.5 million - comes from USDA. The idea is to promote technologies to make bioenergy, as well as bio-based chemicals and products, cheaper and easier to adopt.

Several grants are going to find new ways to make biochemicals as well as biofuels. Biochemicals represent smaller, but often more lucrative, markets for the wide range of technologies - genetically modified microbes, oxygen-free superheating, chemical processes - that seek to turn food and non-food biomass alike into useful products.

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