Clean Energy Supercluster grants total $192,300

Northern Colorado Business Report
NCBR Staff
http://www.ncbr.com/article.asp?id=99853

FORT COLLINS - Ten research projects at Colorado State University will share $192,300 as recipients of the Clean Energy Supercluster's second round of seed grants.

The grants are designed to foster cross-disciplinary collaboration to help early stage research advance. The 2009 grants are in the areas of biofuels, solar, wind, efficiency and other areas. Recipients and awards include:


Eugene Chen in the Department of Chemistry received $17,000 for "A Highly Efficient, Selective, and Green Process for Conversion of Cellulosic Biomass to High-Energy-Density Sugar Molecules."
Tomislav Rovis in the Department of Chemistry received $17,000 for "Chemical Fixation and Programmed Release of CO2 for Sequestration."
Nora Lapitan, Joe Brummer and Junhua Peng in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences received $18,000 for "Evaluation of Miscanthus as a Bioenergy Crop in Colorado and Development of Genetic Resources."
Patrick Byrne and Shusong Zheng in the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences received $15,300 for "Overcoming the Bottleneck of Oilseed Crop Development for Biofuels through Mutagenesis and Interspecies Crosses."
Rebecca Atadero in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering received $17,000 for "Applying Structural Reliability Methods to Improve the Design of Wind Turbine Gearboxes."
V. Chandrasekar in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Dusanka Zupanski in the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere received $18,000 for a combined wind and turbine monitoring radar system for an integrated turbine management.
Amy Prieto in the Department of Chemistry received $17,000 for "Conformal Coating of Polymer Electrolytes for Applications in High Surface Area Li-Ion Rechargeable Batteries."
Ken Wilson and Liba Pejchar in the Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology; Peter Newman in the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources; Jeremy Siemers of the Colorado Natural Heritage Program; Boris Kondratieff, Andrew Norton and Thomas Holtzer in Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management; Kurt Fistrup with the National Park Service; and Paul Cryan with the U.S. Geological Survey received $29,000 for "Environmental and Social Monitoring at Maxwell Ranch Wind Farm."
Leigh Fortson and Irene Shonle with the CSU Extension received $15,000 for "Training Extension Agents to Educate Coloradoans."
Jennifer Cross in the Department of Sociology; Zinta Byrne in the Department of Psychology; and Bill Franzen and Stu Reeve with Poudre School District received $29,000 for "Organizational Innovation for Energy Conservation."
"These researchers are at the cutting edge in their fields, so we're looking forward to their results and hope to share them with our business partners," said Bryan Willson, chief scientific officer for the Clean Energy Supercluster, in a prepared statement.