Univeristy of British Columbia Announces New Biofuel Project

The University of British Columbia (UBC) continues to set the bar for advancements in global renewable energy research by working on a project that will see the production of enough green energy to power 1500 homes. In addition, the university reports that the projects will eliminate nearly 4500 tons of greenhouse gas emissions from the campus.

The demonstration project, a collaborative effort between the UBC, Nexterra and GE Water & Power (NYSE: GE), has been under construction since November 2010. Called the UBC Bioenergy Research and Demonstration Project, the center will produce heat and energy for use, first, in the university and then branch out to global commercialization.

The technology used to extract energy from the biomass (which includes pine beetle wood chips) is such that no burning occurs so no carbon is released into the atmosphere. Instead, the biofuel is extracted by a process that turns the biomass into a gas.

Last week the provincial government announced that it would granting the project $11.2 million which will help the university to be up and running for 2010 and will also help to position UBC as being the first to develop this kind of technology in the world.