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 energy production, the research and development of nuclear power, the military's nuclear w ...

. JBEI is led by the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL, Berkeley Lab) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in the Berkeley Hills, hills of Berkeley, California, United States. Established i ...

, and includes participation from the Sandia National Laboratory,

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...

, as well as

UC Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after the Anglo-Irish philosopher George Berkele ...

UC Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Davis, California, United States. It is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University ...

Iowa State University Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a Public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricult ...

, 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, California, Berkeley and Oakland, California, Oakland, with a border on the shore of San Francisc ...

. 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 (energy), biomass, rather than by the very slow natural processes involved in the formation of fossil fuels such as oil. Biofuel can be produced from plants or from agricu ...

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 rigidit ...

derived from

corn stover Corn stover consists of the leaves, stalks, and cobs of corn (maize) (''Zea mays'' ssp. ''mays'' L.) plants left in a field after harvest. Such stover makes up about half of the yield of a corn crop and is similar to straw from other cere ...

sorghum ''Sorghum bicolor'', commonly called sorghum () and also known as great millet, broomcorn, guinea corn, durra, imphee, jowar, or milo, is a species in the Poaceae, grass genus ''Sorghum (genus), Sorghum'' cultivated for its grain. The grain i ...

and other plant feedstocks (see second generation biofuels) 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 ...

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