The Age of BioSUCCEED
6 March 2010
Today I wanted to begin a dialogue with the US and the rest of the world on the value and importance of biomass & bioenergy. I am a scientist who works at the Department of Wood & Paper Science at North Carolina State University on renewable materials, especially cellulose and associated polysaccharides. So far, the US and a number of developed countries have not been doing a good job of encouraging the use of renewables for their economic and national advantage. I am working with a number of good people not only at my University, but at two other prominent Universities (North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville) on a project affectionately known as BioSUCCEED which stands for Bioproducts Sustainability, a University Cooperative Center of Excellence in EDucation. The project is a virtual center located at the BioSUCCEED website (ncsu.edu/biosucceed or biosucceed.com) where all of our material is located. The effort has been sponsored by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for the last several years and will be in effect for a number of years.
We invite your participation in this effort by considering the following question:
How important is a bio-based economy to you?
BioSUCCEED is a multi-year project that was funded by the USDA to provide content to all users interested in biomass & bioenergy. NC State University has been working on developing content through its laboratory work, classroom development, and research. It is broadcast on http://www.ncsu.edu/biosucceed for all interested users.
Biofuels are the next big thing in energy production, and scientists with backgrounds in biomass and biofuel research are in big demand. The field itself is relatively new, however, and many universities lack the infrastructure necessary to give interested students the ability to take courses that are specifically about biomass and how to convert it into alternative fuels or higher-value chemicals. NC State is helping to fill that demand by creating a curriculum any college or university can use that will allow students to receive either an MA or a PhD in biomass science—preparing a new generation of researchers for the jobs of tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteWith $500,000 in funding from the USDA, NC State, the University of Tennessee–Knoxville and North Carolina A&T have teamed up to create Biosucceed: Bioproduct Sustainability, a University Cooperative Center of Excellence in Education.
When completed, Biosucceed will be a complete curriculum for students interested in obtaining either a Master’s or a PhD in biomass sciences, and will be available to instructors either in DVD format or on the Web. The Biosucceed curriculum will consist of five course topics: Fundamentals of Biomass, Biomass Characterization, Enzymatic Conversion, Thermal Conversion, and Life Cycle Analysis. The DVD for each topic within the curriculum will contain a semester-long sequence of lectures and complete course materials.
Dr. Lucian Lucia, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Natural Resources’ wood and paper science department is in charge of NC State’s participation in the Biosucceed initiative.
“We know that biofuel research is really starting to take off, but that there are really very few universities with the courses that students need to take if they want to excel in this field,” Lucia says. “Biosucceed will make these courses available to anyone who wants to take them, which will have a significant impact on the biomass work-force.”