The Department of Energy is making $100 million in government stimulus money available to researchers with ideas for radically different energy technologies.
The DOE on Monday announced the second portion of the ARPA-E program and said that "concept papers" for three research areas--fuels, capturing carbon dioxide from coal plants, and long-range electric vehicle batteries--are due by the middle of next January. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke unveiled the green-tech research program in conjunction with the start of international climate treaty talks in Copenhagen, which got under way Monday.

One area that the DOE's ARPA-E program is offering research money for is making liquid fuels from microorganisms without biomass or oil. Start-up Joule Biotechnologies is a company that is already pursuing that path using sunlight, CO2, and genetically engineered microorganisms.

Source: Cnet news

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