On July 8, 2017, the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) sponsored the Engineered Carbon Reduction Listening Day: Advanced Strategies to Bypass Land Use for the Emerging Bioeconomy in La Jolla, California. This event explored non-photosynthetic carbon dioxide–reduction technologies, including electrocatalytic, thermocatalytic, photocatalytic, and biocatalytic approaches. 

Input was sought from experts representing industry, academia, and national laboratories on the state of these technologies and their implications for enabling enhanced carbon cycling, offering land-sparing organic feedstock for the advanced bioeconomy, and creating tools that leverage renewable power to manage carbon and create advanced bioproduct pathways for new economic opportunities.  

BETO has a strong conversion technology portfolio that can effectively upgrade carbon monoxide or simple organic molecules to a broad array of valuable chemicals, products, or fuels, but renewable feedstocks have been largely limited to terrestrial biomass and associated intermediates. This listening day supported BETO's efforts to broaden its potential feedstock portfolio; explore sustainable carbon utilization strategies; and leverage conversion technologies and platforms to produce fuels, chemicals, materials, and other biobased products. 

This workshop advanced the DOE mission by exploring investment and research opportunities to improve the efficiency of existing power generation and employing emerging technology with potentially significant implications. The results will be published in a publicly available report with an objective of informing both public- and private-sector planning in the future.

July 8, 2017
Price Center at University of California, San Diego
9500 Gilman Drive
La Jolla, CA 92093

BETO has summarized stakeholder input from the listening day in a report titled Rewiring the Carbon Economy: Engineered Carbon Reduction Listening Day Summary Report.

Note: This report summarizes the results of a public workshop sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The views and opinions of the workshop attendees, as summarized in this document, do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. government or any corresponding agency

For more information about the Engineered Carbon Reduction Listening Day, please contact David Babson.

To view presentations from the workshop, visit the workshop presentations web page.

View the list of confirmed speakers for the Engineered Carbon Reduction Listening Day.