		Bioenergy and Climate Change
		Crop Genetic Improvement
		Soils and Ecosystem Function
		Sustainable Pest and Disease Management
		Mathematical and Computational Biology

Energy crop

Rothamsted Research to help provide clean, green and sustainable fuels

27 January 2009

Rothamsted Research in Harpenden is one of the partners who will benefit from the biggest ever single UK public investment in bioenergy research that has been announced today by the main funding agency for the biosciences – the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

The £27M BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) has been launched to provide the science to underpin and develop the important and emerging UK sustainable bioenergy sector – and to replace the petrol in our cars with fuels derived from plants.

One of the six research hubs of the BSBEC will be based at Rothamsted Research, with others at the Universities of Cambridge, Dundee and York and two at the University of Nottingham. Another 7 universities and institutes are involved and 15 industrial partners, contributing around £7M of the funding.

Sustainable bioenergy offers the potential to provide a significant source of clean, low carbon and secure energy, and to generate thousands of new ‘green collar’ jobs. It uses non-food crops, such as willow, industrial and agricultural waste products and inedible parts of crops, such as straw, and so does not take products out of the food chain.

The Centre’s research activities will encompass many different stages of bioenergy production, from widening the range of materials that can be the starting point for bioenergy to improving the crops used by making them grow more efficiently to changing plant cell walls. The Centre will also analyse the complete economic and environmental life cycle of potential sources of bioenergy.

The Rothamsted hub is called the BSBEC Perennial Bioenergy Crops Programme, and will utilise the the National Willows Collection, also now based at Rothamsted. This is a repository for willow germplasm, set up in the 1920s as a way of conserving varieties which were being lost when rural crafts such as basket and hurdle-making declined. “It is wonderful to see some of this amazing willow diversity being exploited to improve the yield and quality of this important bioenergy crop” said Dr Angela Karp, Director of the Rothamsted Centre for Bioenergy and Climate Change.

Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson, said:
“Investing £27 million in this new centre involves the single biggest UK public investment in bioenergy research. The centre is exactly the sort of initiative this country needs to lead the way in transforming the exciting potential of sustainable biofuels into a widespread technology that can replace fossil fuels.

The expertise and resources of Rothamsted Research makes it well placed to make a valuable contribution to the new BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre and help to make sustainable, environmentally-friendly bioenergy a reality.”

Contacts

» Angela Karp » angela.karp@bbsrc.ac.uk
» BBSRC External Relations
» Matt Goode, Mobile: 07766 423 372, Tel: 01793 413299 » matt.goode@bbsrc.ac.uk
» Nancy Mendoza, Tel: 01793 413355 » nancy.mendoza@bbsrc.ac.uk

Notes to Editors

The BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) is an innovative £27M academic-industry partnership that will help to deliver the science to underpin development in this important and emerging sector. The funding of the Centre has been guided in part by the recommendations of a review of BBSRC’s bioenergy research portfolio published in 2006. The review was chaired by then Council member, Prof Douglas Kell.

The new centre is based around six research hubs of academic and industrial partners.

BSBEC provides a focus for ensuring sustainability, widening the range of materials that can be used as feedstock (raw materials) for bioenergy, changing plant cell walls, making them more amenable to breakdown and optimising fermentation to release energy

BSBEC is made up of six hubs or programmes.

BSBEC Perennial Bioenergy Crops Programme – optimising biomass yield and composition for sustainable biofuels. The programme aims to improve yields of fast growing trees and grasses and to make more of the plants’ carbon available for conversion into biofuels and to do this without increasing inputs such as fertilizers.

Rothamsted Research with associated programme members: Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS), Imperial College London and University of Cambridge.

BSBEC Cell Wall Sugars Programme – developing strategies to improve plants and enzymes for increased sugar release from biomass. The programme aims to better understand how sugars are locked into plant cell walls. By doing this we can select the right plants and the right enzymes to release the maximum amount of sugars for conversion to biofuels.

University of Cambridge with associated programme members: Newcastle University, Shell and Novozymes.

BSBEC Lignocellulosic Conversion to Bioethanol (LACE) Programme – using agricultural and wood-industry wastes to create biofuels. The programme is aiming to optimise the release of sugars from plant cell walls to produce a fermentable material to produce fuels. It will also work on microbes to efficiently turn the material into fuel.

University of Nottingham with associated programme members: University of Bath, University of Surrey, BP, Bioethanol Ltd, Briggs of Burton, British Sugar, Coors Brewers, DSM, Ethanol Technology, HGCA, Pursuit Dynamics, SABMiller and Scottish Whisky Research Institute.

BSBEC Second Generation Sustainable, Bacterial Biofuels Programme – optimising production of the more effective second generation biofuel biobutanol from non-food biomass. Biobutanol is a superior biofuel to ethanol but currently available microbes used in biobutanol production processes are inefficient, produce unwanted by-products and cannot use plant cell walls directly as a feed material. The programme aims to generate and test new bacterial strains to overcome this.

University of Nottingham with associated programme members: Newcastle University and TMO Renewables.

BSBEC Cell Wall Lignin Programme – Improving barley straw for lignin production and transferring the new knowledge to other crops. Lignin is a polymer in plants that makes it difficult to access sugars for bioenergy production. The programme aims to alter lignin properties in barley to make it easier to produce bioenergy without reducing the quality of the crop.

University of Dundee with associated programme members: University of York, SCRI and RERAD.

BSBEC Marine Wood Borer Enzyme Discovery Programme – New enzymes for the conversion of non-food plant biomass into biofuels from marine wood borers. Wood and straw contain polysaccharides that if converted to simple sugars could be fermented into biofuels. At the moment we do not have suitable enzymes to break down these woody materials. However, marine wood borers consume huge amounts of woody material and their guts have all the enzymes needed to break it down. The programme aims to exploit this.

University of York with associated programme members: University of Portsmouth and Syngenta Biomass Traits Group.

Rothamsted Research Press Office

For further information, please contact the Rothamsted Research Press Office. Dr Sharon Hall (Tel: 01582 763133 ext 2757 or email sharon.hall@bbsrc.ac.uk) or Dr Adélia de Paula (Tel: 01582 763133 ext 2260 or email adelia.depaula@bbsrc.ac.uk).

Rothamsted Research is based in Hertfordshire and is one of the largest agricultural research institutes in the country. The mission of Rothamsted Research is to be recognised internationally as a primary source of first-class scientific research and new knowledge that addresses stakeholder requirements for innovative policies, products and practices to enhance the economic, environmental and societal value of agricultural land. The Applied Crop Science department is based at Broom's Barn, Higham, Bury St. Edmunds. North Wyke Research is located near Okehampton in Devon.

About BBSRC

The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) is the UK funding agency for research in the life sciences. Sponsored by Government, BBSRC annually invests around £450M in a wide range of research that makes a significant contribution to the quality of life for UK citizens and supports a number of important industrial stakeholders including the agriculture, food, chemical, healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. BBSRC carries out its mission by funding internationally competitive research, providing training in the biosciences, fostering opportunities for knowledge transfer and innovation and promoting interaction with the public and other stakeholders on issues of scientific interest in universities, centres and institutes.

For more information see www.bbsrc.ac.uk

» Departments
» All Staff
» Food Security
» International Collaboration
» Rothamsted in the News
» Open Weekend 2010

Latest Press Releases

» Will earlier springs throw nature out of step?
» Migrating insects fly in the fast lane
» Environmental change could alter disease transmission routes

Rothamsted Research is an institute of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council

Press release - Rothamsted Research to help provide clean, green and sustainable fuels

Rothamsted Research to help provide clean, green and sustainable fuels

Related links

Contacts

Notes to Editors