Eight Universities to Split $7 Million in Energy Department Grants
Cornell University, the University of Michigan and the University of Alabama are among eight schools that will share $7 million in grants from the Department of Energy, the department announced Dec. 29.
The grants are aimed at boosting projects that produce affordable, sustainable high-performance fuels for low-emission engines. Under the department’s collaborative between the Bioenergy Technologies Office and the Vehicle Technologies Office, researchers will be tapped to figure out ways of reducing transportation-related fuel consumption and emissions.
At Cornell, researchers will partner with the University of California, San Diego, to study diesel and biofuel blends to create cleaner, more efficient combustion engines. Researchers at the University of Michigan will be tasked with developing software that would help reduce the expense of a full engine-cycle simulation by 80%, compared with current technologies.
Researchers at the University of Alabama will use the grant to study the combustion properties of biofuels to come up with a model that predicts combustion properties of various fuel blends, according to the department’s announcement.
The University of Michigan-Dearborn, Louisiana State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale University and the University of Central Florida are the other schools sharing the grant.
The Obama administration has sought to reduce vehicle emissions with the goal of minimizing disruptions to the climate.
