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Obama administration seeking new "energy paradigm"

The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) is funding some seriously cutting edge energy projects.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
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via Flickr
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) is funding some seriously cutting edge energy projects.

Ever heard of electrofuels? Me neither. It doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page.

That, my friends, is cutting edge.

Turns out the Obama administration is all over it, however. The guy who runs the electrofuels program at the Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) is speaking in Rochester this evening.

I will be there. So if you want to know anything about federal policy around alternative energy innovation, you just let us know.

So what are electrofuels? Here are a few gems from my new favorite .gov website.

ARPA-E is seeking new ways to make liquid transportation fuels - without using petroleum or biomass - by using microorganisms to harness chemical or electrical energy to convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuels.

Yeah. Harnessing microorganisms to drive our cars. Bold is too mild a word.

The objective of this topic is to develop an entirely new paradigm for the production of liquid fuels that could overcome the challenges associated with current technologies.

This is cool.

Apparently, ARPA-E also funds a bunch of other futuristic stuff.

WXXI/Finger Lakes reporter for the Innovation Trail.
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