Wednesday, March 9, 2011

A Predictable Change – A new technique can change a plant’s characteristics to make biofuels

A Predictable Change – A new technique can change a plant’s characteristics to make biofuels is the title of an article featuring the work of Jerry Tuskan of ORNL on the website The Encyclopedia of Earth in February.  “A core objective of Oak Ridge National Laboratory's BioEnergy Science Center is to find ways to wring more energy out of the sugars stored in plants. In addition to developing better enzymes, improved microbes and more effective catalysts, Gerald Tuskan's team of plant biologists is exploring ways to generate more energy from biomass by "persuading" plants to store more sugar and then developing new methods of extracting these sugars”.  Looking back at what has been accomplished by the BioEnergy Science Center in a relatively short time; Tuskan believes the center has made remarkable progress. "We really hit the ground running at BESC. Because we put an infrastructure together in a timely way, all the experiments are up and running. Usually with a project this size, there's a longer learning curve and a slow scale-up, but because of our team's experience and the quality of the participating institutions, we have exceeded our project milestones. Everything is in place for a period of genuine discovery."  Read more at: http://www.eoearth.org/article/Changing_Plant_Characteristics_to_Make_Biofuels?topic=60605

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