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CUE 2007
College Plays Lead Role in Establishing Statewide Center for Biorefining and Biofuels

Assistant Professor Ryan Gill will serve as managing director of the new Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels.

The University of Colorado at Boulder is joining with Colorado State University, Colorado School of Mines, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to establish a Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels.

Known as C2B2, the center's mission is to become the world's leading center for research, education, and innovation on integrating renewable energy sources into the chemical and fuels industry.

"Our vision extends from crops to chemicals to fuels," says Ryan Gill, CU assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering and C2B2's new managing director. "We aim to speed the development of an entirely new industry in an area of critical national need."

The center's research program will involve six thrusts, extending from basic efforts to engineer plants for biofuels and refining applications, to methods to biochemically or thermo-chemically convert engineered biomass to useful end-products, to strategies for developing efficient and economical bioprocesses.

The center will be supported with a combination of university, state, and federal funds and industrial sponsorships.

"Colorado is an ideal location for the enterprise because of the vast expertise in energy and renewables at the state's three major universities and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory located in Golden," says Alan Weimer, CU professor of chemical and biological engineering and C2B2's new executive director.

The four institutions are committed to combining their faculties and resources to allow C2B2 to pursue broad and intensive research and development projects on a scale that no university in the world can manage on its own.

Educational activities will include a summer undergraduate research program, fellowships for undergraduate and graduate students and post-docs, a seminar series, and outreach to high school students.