National Bioenergy Center
The National Bioenergy Center (NBC) was established in October 2000 to support the science and technology goals of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Biomass Program. Headquartered at NREL, this virtual center unifies DOE's efforts to advance technology for producing renewable transportation fuels from biomass. A primary goal is to demonstrate the production of cost-competitive cellulosic ethanol by 2012. Collaborating with industrial, academic, and other governmental research, development, and commercialization efforts is central to achieving this goal.
Mission
The National Bioenergy Center's mission is to foster capability to catalyze the replacement of petroleum with transportation fuels from biomass by delivering innovative, cost-effective biofuels solutions.
Organization
The National Bioenergy Center is composed of four technical groups and a technical lead for partnership development with industry. Partnership development includes work performed at NREL under Cooperative Research and Development Agreements, Technical Service Agreements, Analytical Service Agreements, and Work for Others contract research for DOE's industry partners.
The NBC is a real center with a research organization housed at NREL, its lead laboratory, and a virtual center of biomass R&D efforts conducted at four other DOE laboratories. Each of the five laboratories has a designated "relationship manager" to coordinate its interactions with the DOE Biomass Program and other DOE laboratories.
Learn more about the laboratories that support the research of the DOE Biomass Program:
- Biorefinery R&D: A. Bratis, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
- Feedstock Development: R. Graham, Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- Biomass Harvesting Technology: J.R. Hess, Idaho National Laboratory
- Syngas, Catalysis, and Bioproducts: J. Male, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
- Reaction Engineering and Separations: S. Snyder, Argonne National Laboratory.
