Home / Archive / Big Deals: UC Davis Receives $25 Million
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Feature: March 2007
UC Davis Receives $25 Million
The 10 biggest breakthroughs, bombshells and busts of 2006
Story by Rich Ehisen
If a name could be given to 2006, it should be The Year of Big Moves.
Huge decisions were made last year by business leaders, legislators and even California voters that will move our state and our region in new — and hopefully prosperous — directions.
That’s not to say that all the big deals and decisions took us forward. Some were a step — or three — backward in ways that will have an impact on Sacramento’s landscape for years to come.
The impact of many of this year’s big decisions may not be seen or felt for several years, but that should be taken as good news: It’s much better for a region to make forward-thinking decisions than to react to a crisis at the last minute.
As we breathe cleaner air, drive better roads, live safely behind better levees, enjoy new ways to get from A to B, and benefit from a healthy and diverse economy, we can look back to 2006 as the year that made it all possible.
The ongoing search for alternative and renewable sources of energy got a huge boost this year when the Chevron Corp. pledged $25 million to fund biofuels research at the University of California, Davis.
The goal is to produce transportation fuels from renewable sources like forest and agricultural residues, municipal solid waste and so-called energy crops like corn and rice stalks. It’s a significant investment for the university, which has a nearly four-decades-long tradition of biomass fuels research.
“UC Davis is a leading research institution on hydrogen and biofuels, as well as power generation from biomass,” says Chevron spokesman Leif Sollid. “Were excited to be working with them to make biofuels viable in the near future.”
The $25 million pledge will be paid out over five years, and the research effort will be undertaken with the California Biomass Collaborative to support a broad range of researchers .
One of those researchers is Professor Bryan Jenkins, who co-chairs the Bioenergy Research Group at UC Davis. In his view, Chevron’s investment will help make California, which imports most of the biofuel it uses today (mostly in the form of ethanol from the Midwest), more self-sufficient.
“We’re looking to increase capacity in biofuels production so that California eventually supplies 75 percent of the biofuels it uses, but we also need to continue a strong research and development program to demonstrate these new technologies and make them attractive to the population,” Jenkins says.
Chevron’s investment also further established the region’s position as an emerging hub for clean-energy technology.
“If things continue moving in this direction, there’s no reason we couldn’t become one of the premiere green-
energy and clean-technology hubs in the nation, if not the world,” says Oleg Kaganovich, CEO of the Sacramento Area Regional Technology Alliance. “It’s one of the few areas where academia, politicians, industry and nonprofits are not only in agreement, they’re all moving in the same direction. The stars are certainly aligning.”
