DOE Awards $28 Million to National Laboratories for Bioenergy, Smart Grids

DOE announced on August 4 that it will award more than $28 million to four DOE national laboratories to support research and development of bioenergy technologies and to support analytical studies of Smart Grid technologies. The awards were part of $327 million in funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for scientific research, instrumentation, and infrastructure improvements, including $107.5 million that is slated to go to universities, nonprofit organizations, and private firms, and $220 million that will go to 10 of DOE's national laboratories. Of that $220 million, $164.7 million has been allocated to specific projects, with most of the funds going toward research in high-energy physics and fusion energy.

Of the funds going toward bioenergy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) will receive $13.1 million to upgrade equipment at the DOE Joint Genome Institute and $4 million for new instrumentation at the DOE Joint BioEnergy Institute, which is one of three DOE Bioenergy Research Centers. Oak Ridge National Laboratory will receive $5.4 million for equipment at the DOE BioEnergy Science Center—another of the DOE Bioenergy Research Centers—as well as $3.2 million to start developing a computerized knowledge base that integrates the data from DOE-supported research in genomics and systems biology. In addition, LBNL, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories will receive a total of $2.43 million for mathematical analyses related to the development of the Smart Grid. See the DOE press release.

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