The federal agency announced on Wednesday that nearly $80 million under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will be awarded to the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium and the National Alliance for Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts. UA is a founding member of the latter.
Up to $33.8 million will go to the National Advanced Biofuels Consortium, which said grants to both groups will be matched by the private sector and cost-share funds.
"This is really exciting, and it’s a great project because of all the expertise being brought together – from the private sectors, universities and national labs," said Michael A. Cusanovich, a UA Regents’ professor emeritus and one of the investigators with NAABB.
Kimberly Ogden, a UA chemical and environmental engineering professor, will serve as the university’s principal investigator and head of the alliance’s engineering efforts.
"To tackle the problem of large-scale production of algae for fuels and other products we have to have a better understanding of everything from the biology to the interfacing with existing petroleum processing plants," Ogden said.
"We’re looking at the whole thing," she said, "from growing algae to putting fuel in your tank."
Overall, the two consortium groups are charged with studying and developing ways to create advanced biofuels from algae that would then be mass produced for transportation while also boosting the nation’s bio-industry.
"We’re pulling all this expertise together to address the broad problem, which is to make an economically viable biofuel," said Cusanovich, also a UA biochemical and molecular biophysics professor who directs the Arizona Research Laboratories.
"This grant has a number of fundamental components ranging from discovery to identifying new strains of algae that can be optimized for fuel production," he added. "And we’re talking about developing systems that would be able to generate billions of gallons a year."
U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu said advanced biofuels are a key factor in establishing a clean energy economy.
"By harnessing the power of science and technology, we can bring new biofuels to the market and develop a cleaner and more sustainable transportation sector," Chu said in a statement.
"This investment will help spur the creation of the domestic bio-industry, while creating jobs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil," he added.
The consortium’s $44 million will be held by the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Missouri to facilitate development of a systems approach that will allow for the sustainable commercialization of algal biofuel – renewable gasoline, diesel and jet fuel – and bioproducts.
Among the issues NAABB’s members will address are the costs of mass producing biofuels, use of resources, greenhouse gas emissions and commercial viability, the federal agency noted.
The UA’s contribution will include water usage and quality issues, biology and reactor design.
At fruition, the algae would be grown year-round in temperature-controlled environments that would lead to biofuels being offered at competitive prices, Cusanovich said.
"You can imagine having thousands of these all over the place," he said.
In addition to Cusanovich and Ogden, others at the UA working on collaborative projects under the grant are: Robert Arnold, a chemical and environmental engineering professor; Paul Blowers, a chemical and environmental engineering associate professor; Judith Brown, a plant science professor; Joel Cuello, an agriculture and biosystems engineering professor; Leslie Gunatilaka, an arid lands professor; Istvan Molnar, an associate professor of arid lands; Mark Riley, head of the agricultural and biosystems engineering department; and Peter Waller, associate professor of agricultural and biosystems engineering.
