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Piece Description
Taking the energy from plants and making a gasoline alternative to run our cars has great promise but there are huge problems to solve. The next answer may not come from Saudi Arabia but from a UC Berkeley lab, a Silicon Valley start up or a local researcher working in the jungles of Costa Rica.
Broadcast History
Aired twice on 2/15/08 locally on KQED KQEI, during "B" segment of Morning edition.
Transcript
Making fuel from plants isn't new. For centuries people have been turning plant matter into alcohol. (bring up lab sound) In fact, the basic recipe for moonshine? ? grind up a plant - like corn - into sugar water .. add yeast and ? ferment. But alcohol can also run engines.
LAB sound up .. and fade under to cross fade with room tone).
That?s basically what they are doing here in Emeryville at the new Joint Bioenergy Institute, or (?Jay-Bay?), a project of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, UC-Berkeley and other research institutions.
KEASLING 1: "If you think about a plant it?s really sugar that makes up a large fraction of the plant maybe half of the plant material. ?:06
Jay Keasling is a professor of chemical engineering at UC Berkeley.. He heads up JBEI which is funded by a 125-million dollar grant from the Department of Energy .
KEASLING 2: "What we're trying to do ov...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
SUGGESTED HOST INTRO: Concern over global warming and rising gas prices has just about everyone, including presidential candidates, touting biofuels. Taking the energy from plants to make a gasoline alternative that can run our cars has great promise. But there are a number of challenges. Andrea Kissack reports on the next generation of biofuels being developed right here in the Bay Area.
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