Scott Banta, a chemical engineering professor at Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, has won a federal grant to come up with a bacteria that can produce the biofuel butanol by growing on carbon dioxide and ammonia. The carbon dioxide will come from ambient air, not … [continued]
The timing was pure coincidence but the irony is still crushing: this week, while the fallout was still settling from the Massey coal mine disaster and crews were fighting vainly to stem a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, ARPA-E announced its picks for a new round of … [continued]
ARPA-E is on a roll. The agency charged with propelling the U.S. into a new energy future just announced a new $100 million round of funding aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The focus is on innovative technologies for grid-scale energy storage, along with next-generation power converters and new energy … [continued]
The first round of federal ARPA-E funding for future energy kick-started a stunning range of 37 different projects last year, from fuel-secreting bacteria to liquid batteries and a way to create solar energy by mimicking photosynthesis. Now the agency has launched a new round that narrows the target down to … [continued]
Daniel Nocera’s Sun Catalytix was one of the 37 ARPA-E awardees last month with a $4.1 million vote of confidence from the Nobel prizewinner-driven Department of Energy. Now Polaris Venture Partners has just added $1 million to its earlier $2 million investment in the MIT spin-off to bring their total … [continued]
We are actually the second planet-altering species. Three billion years ago, Cyanobacteria were the first. They totally changed this planet to one that is safe for oxygen breathers. That was a big change for species at the time, and most species didn’t make it. Nearly all of them went extinct. … [continued]
President Obama announced new federal funding goals for science, particularly the transformational energy research program ARPA-E, just as a a global swine flu pandemic was getting underway, so it’s little wonder that the news sank with barely a ripple. Among those who did take notice, the Sierra Club stated that … [continued]
