News

A six-year Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) study on the viability of different bioenergy feedstocks recently demonstrated that perennial cropping systems such as switchgrass, giant miscanthus, poplar, native grasses, and prairie can yield as much biomass as corn stover.

MADISON - About 500 years ago, the accidental natural hybridization of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the yeast responsible for things like ale, wine and bread, and a distant yeast cousin gave rise to lager beer.

Today, cold-brewed lager is the world's most consumed alcoholic beverage, fueling an industry with annual sales of more than $250 billion.

David Ryder recently shared with us his thoughts about serving as scientific advisor to GLBRC, the past eight years of GLBRC research, and the next decade of bioenergy advancements.

As a boy, wet and muddy to the knees, John Greenler did his share of up-ending rocks in streambeds to search for the crayfish and salamanders dwelling below.

We tend to assume that all botanists have green thumbs. But friends and colleagues stopped giving Federica Brandizzi plants long ago.

The Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) has hired Tina Nielsen, 2008 geology Ph.D. graduate, as Associate Director to help elevate the Center’s efforts. Her combined experience in research, scientific instruction and university-industry relations makes her a promising addition to the GLBRC.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Christoph Benning, Michigan State University professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, will become the director of the MSU/ U.S. Department of Energy Plant Research Laboratory beginning Aug. 16. 

The prospect of converting large tracts of the Midwest’s marginal farming land to perennial biofuel crops carries with it some key unknowns, including how such a change could affect the balance of water between rainfall inputs, evaporation losses, and movement of soil water to the groundwater. In humid climates such as the U.S.

cientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Michigan State University (MSU) report today that emissions of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O) can be reduced significantly by replacing annual biofuels feedstocks, such as corn, with second-generation, perennial feedstocks such as switchgrass. 

Yeast, the same microbe that gives us bread, beer, and wine, can also convert sugar molecules found in plants into ethanol.

But just as toddlers can be picky eaters, so can yeast: it only eats sugar if it has exactly six carbon molecules. One molecule less and consuming it is out of the question.