Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
Available On Air Stations
Watch Live

Berkeley Bioenergy Centers Get Big Funding to Research Ethanol

One of three new national Bioenergy Research Centers will be based in Berkeley. The centers will research how ethanol and other biofuels can be cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012.

Berkeley Bioenergy Centers Get Big Funding to Research Ethanol

One of three new national Bioenergy Research Centers will be based in Berkeley. The centers will research how ethanol and other biofuels can be cost-competitive with gasoline by 2012.

The San Francisco center is called the Joint BioEnergy Institute. It'll be known as JBEI. The partnership includes UC Berkeley, Davis and Stanford University.

Advertisement

The CEO of JBEI is UC Berkeley Professor Jay Keasling. He says one area of research will focus on creating new energy sources from plants.

Keasling : Our feedstocks division will look at how plants are synthesized with the idea that if we understand how plants are made, we'll be able to develop new plants for the future that will be dedicated for energy use.

The Berkeley-based center is expected to receive $125 million in Department of Energy funding over five years.

UC Riverside and San Diego-based Verenium Corporation are part a center based in Oak Ridge Tennessee. The third BioEnergy Research Center is in Wisconsin.