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According to a new, three-year study from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and Michigan State University (MSU), the use of nitrogen fertilizer on switchgrass crops can produce a sharp increase in emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas up to 300 times more harmful than carbon di

In their lab on a 20-acre prairie in Madison, Wisconsin, Xylome scientists are busy tinkering with the yeasts that live in the bellies of wood-boring beetles. A spin-off from the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Xylome is lowering the cost of making ethanol by creating new yeast strains that more efficiently convert cellulosic biomass to fuel.

Less input, more output. That’s the achievement of a new biomass pretreatment method that could help improve the economics of cellulosic biofuels, the second-generation biofuels made from grasses, wood, and the inedible parts of plants.

As a college sophomore at the University of California–San Diego, Jennifer Reed took a course on building boats and bridges. Though mechanical engineering had long been the “family business” – her father and both her grandfathers were engineers – Reed realized soon enough that hulls and trestles were not her true calling.

Three U.S.

An assistant research specialist at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) has designed a new strain of yeast that could improve the efficiency of making fuel from cellulosic biomass such as switchgrass.

Long before Tim Donohue became the director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), he was a teenage beach cleaner and would-be biologist growing up on the boardwalk of New York City’s Rockaway Beach.

To tackle what many consider the next frontier in biofuels research, the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC) recently joined forces with the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in Emeryville, California. The focus of their collaboration? Lignin, a glue-like compound in the cell wall of most living plants that gives them their sturdiness.

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.