USDA announces funding for sustainable bioenergy projects in 25 states

In Georgia, the USDA announced funding for projects during the 16th 1890 Biennial Research Symposium in Atlanta. The project will focus on crop protection for sustainable feedstock production systems, enhanced value co-product development, and carbon sequestration and sustainable bioenergy production.

Projects were funded in Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Three projects in California that focus on determining the feasibility and sustainability of using poplar, switchgrass and sugarcane as a biomass feedstock.

Three projects in Michigan that focus on the environmental impact of biomass feedstock production, pest control in perennial grasses used as a biomass feedstock and developing a cost-effective fermentation process to increase the sustainability of biodiesel production.

Four projects in South Dakota to design an ecologically optimized feedstock production system, develop activation technologies for producing valuable activated carbon from biochar, to research methods to produce high levels of commercially-available polysaccharide gums from prairie cordgrass and an equipment grant to purchase chromatography system for research on advanced biofuels production and development of lignocellulosic biomass.

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