GLOBAL CHALLENGES

Government Project Dedicated to Increasing Biofuel Efficiency

Rebecca Kutzer-Rice | Date: 05-04-11 | Comments

The Department of Energy has just unveiled a $30 million project dedicated to making biofuels cheaper and more efficient. The Plants Engineered To Replace Oil (PETRO) project aims to make crops like soybeans and corn easier to convert into fuel, while reducing the displacement of food crops by biofuel crops.

Biofuels promise to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels and find useful ways to reuse waste products, but the expense of such alternative fuels inhibits them from becoming more widespread. Now, the Department of Energy's (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency � Energy (ARPA-E) has unveiled a plan to reduce biofuel costs by 50 percent.

According to an April announcement from the DOE, the Plants Engineered To Replace Oil (PETRO) project will focus on creating new plants and modifying existing plants to "capture more energy from sunlight and convert that energy directly into fuels."

Today's biofuel crops, including corn, have low efficiency rates and yield small amounts of fuel per acre. Low rates can mean that biofuels have equal or even higher carbon emissions than traditional fuels like gasoline. As the Telegraph notes, �Soybeans grown in America therefore have an indirect carbon footprint of 340kg of CO2 per gigajoule, compared to just 85kg for conventional diesel or gasoline.�

In addition to their low efficiencies, biofuels also threaten to displace food crops and cause rising food prices worldwide. In 2010, for example, corn prices rose by 53 percent and wheat by 47 percent. While weather and other factors played a role in these increases, biofuels were also to blame. In 2010, 40 percent of corn production was dedicated to ethanol.

Last year, nearly 40 percent of corn production in the United States was used to make ethanol.

Current U.S. goals for biofuels are steep. By 2022, the country aims to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuel�that's three times as much as last year.

The PETRO project could have wide-reaching benefits, including biofuels that are cost-competitive with oil-based fuels. Up to $30 million will be made available to universities, businesses and other organizations working on the project.

PETRO comes as a part of ARPA-E's fourth round of green energy projects. This round includes funding for research in thermal energy storage, rare earth metal alternatives, electric grid technologies and solar power. These projects join existing programs in power electronics, battery technologies building cooling, non-photosynthetic biofuels, grid energy storage and carbon capture.

"ARPA-E is unleashing American innovation to strengthen America's global competitiveness and win the clean energy race," said Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "In addition to creating new jobs, breakthroughs in clean energy technologies can reduce our country's dependence of foreign oil, decrease the cost of clean electricity and build a sustainable infrastructure for future generations of Americans."