The Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) is a research institute funded by the

United States Department of Energy The United States Department of Energy (DOE) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government that oversees U.S. national energy policy and manages the research and development of nuclear power and nuclear weapons in the United Stat ...

. JBEI is led by the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

, and includes participation from the

Sandia National Laboratory Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force Bas ...

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a federal research facility in Livermore, California, United States. The lab was originally established as the University of California Radiation Laboratory, Livermore Branch in 1952 in response ...

, as well as

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of Californi ...

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...

, and the Carnegie Institute. JBEI is located in

Emeryville, California Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisco Bay. The resident population was 12,905 as o ...

. The goal of The Joint BioEnergy Institute is to develop

biofuel Biofuel is a fuel that is produced over a short time span from biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels, such as oil. According to the United States Energy Information Administration (E ...

s, bio-synthesized from

lignin Lignin is a class of complex organic polymers that form key structural materials in the support tissues of most plants. Lignins are particularly important in the formation of cell walls, especially in wood and bark, because they lend rigidity ...

derived from corn stover,

sorghum ''Sorghum'' () is a genus of about 25 species of flowering plants in the grass family (Poaceae). Some of these species are grown as cereals for human consumption and some in pastures for animals. One species is grown for grain, while many othe ...

and other plant feedstocks (see

second generation biofuels Second-generation biofuels, also known as advanced biofuels, are fuels that can be manufactured from various types of non-food biomass. Biomass in this context means plant materials and animal waste used especially as a source of fuel. First-gener ...

) as an alternative to fossil fuels. Additionally, there are efforts to produce bio-based chemicals derived from the deconstruction of

lignocellulosic biomass Lignocellulose refers to plant dry matter (biomass), so called lignocellulosic biomass. It is the most abundantly available raw material on the Earth for the production of biofuels. It is composed of two kinds of carbohydrate polymers, cellulose a ...

to create bio-based polymers and other commodities such as perfumes, dietary supplements as well as other high-end products. The goal is to use these bio-based chemicals to help finance the change in infrastructure from petroleum fuels to biofuels. JBEI functions as an incubator for scientific discovery bringing together the best and brightest researchers from around the country and the globe. Inside JBEI's Emeryville laboratories, five interlocking scientific divisions–Life-cycle, Economics and Agronomy; Feedstocks; Deconstruction; Biofuels and Bioproducts; and Technology–bring the sunlight-to-biofuels/bioproducts pipeline under one roof. JBEI represents a departure from traditional research institutions that specialize in a single field. Here, an inter-disciplinary team of some 160-plus scientists, post doctoral researchers and graduate students combine their expertise and collaborate to develop genetic, biological, computational and robotic technologies to accelerate the process of discovery. JBEI researchers are developing scientific breakthroughs to produce clean, sustainable, carbon-neutral biofuels and bioproducts. An inter-disciplinary team of scientists is using the latest techniques in molecular biology, chemical and genetic engineering to develop new biological systems, processes and technologies to convert biomass to biofuels and bioproducts. In the lab, JBEI researchers are engineering microbes to transform sugars into energy-rich fuels that can directly replace petroleum-derived gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Advanced biofuels can also be dropped into today's engines and infrastructures with no loss of performance. Harnessing the solar energy in biomass from grasses and other non-edible plants could meet much of the nation's annual transportation energy needs without contributing to global climate change.

References

External links

* * Bioenergy organizations Energy research institutes Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Emeryville, California Research institutes in California Research institutes in the San Francisco Bay Area {{Renewable-energy-stub