Universities and other organization and entities will be part of a record-setting $160 million grant from the National Science Foundation to transform Louisiana’s energy industry.
Tulane University Professor of Chemical Engineering, Daniel Shantz, is a co-leader of the effort, and talks about the goal, and why Louisiana is a focus.
He says, “We make fuel, we make fertilizer, we make plastics and chemicals. It is you know doing this in a more sustainable way, a more energy efficient way with a smaller CO2 footprint.”
The effort to reduce Louisiana’s carbon footprint is being supported by the National Science Foundation and Louisiana Economic Development through funding totaling more than $227 million.
The NSF grant will cover a period of up to ten years that will hopefully foster scientific innovation towards energy transition of our state’s industrial corridor.
Shantz notes, “We are in the heart of the oil and gas sector, there’s a lot of concerns over climate change and how this will potentially impact the environment and so anything we can do to use energy as efficiently as possible is a positive outcome.”
The funding will also be used to help university partners build a world-class team to convert research into practical and useful solutions toward de-carbonizing the state.
Professor Schantz says, “We’ve organized the group in the structure of how we’re going to manage it so these are cross-cutting. We think that gives us our best chance of succeeding at meeting some fairly ambitious goals around of decarbonizing the industrial sector around Louisiana.”
The effort to reduce Louisiana’s carbon footprint is being supported by the NSF and Louisiana Economic Development through funding totaling more than $227 million.