The Energy Department has announced up to $7 million for two projects aimed at developing and demonstrating ways to reduce the cost of delivering bioenergy feedstocks to biorefineries.  By investing in this type of research, development, and demonstration, the Energy Department is supporting the production of renewable and cost-competitive biofuels.

The projects, located in New York and Tennessee, will focus on developing advanced machinery for efficient and low-cost harvesting, collection, and transportation of high-quality bioenergy feedstocks:

• The State University of New York—College of Environmental Science and Forestry of Syracuse, New York will receive up to $3.5 million to lower the delivered cost of short rotation woody crops; rapidly, accurately, and reliably assess feedstock quality; and improve harvest and preprocessing operations to produce feedstocks that meet key biorefinery partner specifications.
• The University of Tennessee of Knoxville, Tennessee, will receive up to $3.5 million to study how blending feedstocks could play a role in increasing the amount of available feedstock within a given delivery radius. The project will develop and demonstrate a state-of-the-art biomass processing depot to reduce sources of variation along the supply chain of multiple, high-impact biomass sources (pine and switchgrass) and deliver a consistent feedstock optimized for performance.