« Taxpayer Group's Nonpartisan Scorecard Finds More 'Taxpayers' Friends' but Many 'Big Spenders' in Congress | Main | Does the U.S. Really Need More College Graduates? »
A Tree in Your Tank? $3.2M NSF Grant Funds Effort to Transform Poplar Trees into Biofuel
February 25, 2010Gas money for your tank doesn't grow on trees, but one day you might be filling up with fuel that does. A team of researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Bowie State University is working on ways to turn poplar trees into high-yield crops for biofuels including ethanol, the renewable biofuel used in gasoline blends and flex-fuel vehicles. The hybrid trees would be grown on plantations and harvested without affecting existing woodlands. The study is funded by a $3.2 million, four-year grant from the National Science Foundation's Plant Genome Research Project, which supports research on plants seen as having economic and agricultural importance. Full release.