Green Energy Canada-California Consortium (GE-C3)
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: Three of the great challenges of the 21st century are 1. A renewable and sustainable fuel supply, 2. Climate change and 3. Global food security. Biofuel research and development will contribute to our understanding of and our ability to manage these challenges. We propose development of a fully integrated partnership between Canadian and Californian researchers that capitalizes on complementary strengths in the areas of feedstock development, conversion of biomass to biofuels, biofuel utilization and aspects of socio-economics/sustainability, including water supply, related to biofuels and bioproducts. Developing these four areas in an integrated and synchronous fashion will accelerate the birth of a new energy sector that reduces greenhouse gas emissions without significant competition with the food production sector. The proposed set of researchers have the expertise required to move this enterprise forward and this CCSIP sponsored consortium will coordinate their activities, leading to the generation of key technologies that will be transferred to appropriate industry partners as they develop. Through CCSIP funded activities we will engineer an R&amp;D business plan that will be presented in three forms: 1. A roadmap for biofuel and bioproduct R&amp;D and its development by researchers active in the field 2. A white paper useful for policy makers, to the general benefit of society 3. A technical and scientific review suitable for publication in a high level journal where it will help to guide the broader research community This business plan will develop a new model of collaboration between Canada and California that leverages key research capabilities and opportunities, addresses common priorities, and, most importantly, accelerates the delivery of research results for a novel, reliable and environmentally beneficial energy source as soon as possible, while also developing a new sector of the economy (with particular benefit to rural economies). Our efforts will result in new crops, effective biorefineries for biofuel production, interactions with the user sector (aerospace and surface transport) and understanding of biofuel combustion properties for their engines and, finally, the economics, social effects and environmental aspects of a new and vibrant biofuel and bioproduct industry. Because the need for extensive reliance on biofuels has arisen rapidly we are short of researchers to carry out the much needed work, but this collaboration will train new personnel for deployment in both the public and private sectors. This training will occur through an internet course, lecture series and student exchange between labs in Canada and California. There is a clear and urgent need to develop alternative and renewable energy sources. Both the public and the policy makers are aware of the need to develop biofuels/bioproducts to address this. The proposed Canada-California consortium will be a world leader in research, development and policymaking in this area.