by Dr. Klein E. Ileleji, Assistant Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Extension Engineer, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana.

12月18日（周四）上午9：30在231房间，内容为所附讲座1；Presentation 1: Overview of Renewable Energy in the United States and Energy Research and Outreach at Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN

Energy is one of the most crucial resources needed for the development of any society.  In the past few years, especially after the September 11 terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, energy policies in the United States have been driven by national security goals. The disruption of fuel supplies from the coast lines by Hurricane Katarina in 2005 further showed the vulnerability of petroleum supplies which the U.S. is very dependent on. In recent times, climate change concerns and the need to create new green jobs from renewable energy is gaining support, especially by the new incoming presidential administration. In just eight years of the last U.S. administration, we have seen a lot of changes in our energy policy, one of which was policies to increase the production of liquid renewable fuels, primarily ethanol and biodiesel. The Energy Act of 2007 mandates the use of 36 billion gallons of fuel ethanol, of which 15 billion must be produced from cellulosic feedstocks. There have been little federal incentives toward power production from biomass, with much of the incentives being at the state level.

In this presentation, I will give an overview of U.S. energy production and in particular biofuels production from grains and oilseeds (first generation fuels) and growing energy production from Wind. I will also present the research work currently underway at Purdue University to produce second generation fuels from biomass. I will highlight some of the on-going work on co-firing biomass with coal at Purdue’s Walter Wade Utility Station’s circulating fluidized bed boiler (CFB) with which I am collaborating with the State Key lab for Clean Energy Utilization at Zhejiang University.  Finally, I will high-light Purdue’s outreach efforts on fueling and feeding America from renewable feedstocks through agricultural and energy extension activities.