Primus Green Energy Joins NEWBio Consortium as Industry Collaborator

Primus Green Energy, a New Jersey alternative energy company based in Hillsborough, New Jersey, has signed on to the Northeast Woody/Warm-season Biomass Consortium (NEWBio) as an industry collaborator. The company will provide technical insight to the group as it develops perennial feedstock production systems and supply chains for biomass feedstocks.

The consortium is led by Penn State's College of Agricultural Science and supported by a nearly $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture. Other consortium partners include eight universities based in the Northeast, the USDA's Eastern Regional Research Center, the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory. The consortium includes eight other industrial collaborators, and Primus is the only advanced alternative fuel company of the group.

NEWBio will focus on the development of four large demonstration projects throughout the Northeast operating at commercial scales of thousands of acres to produce between 500 and 1,200 tons per day of lignocellulosic biomass for alternative fuel production. Plant scientists will work to improve the ability of crops to grow on marginal lands and to resist insects and disease, with a goal of increasing yields by 25 percent and reducing costs by 20 percent.

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Antonio Pasolini is a Corporate Social Responsibility writer for Justmeans, Antonio Pasolini is a journalist based in Brazil who writes about alternative energy, green living and sustainability. He also edits Energyrefuge.com, a top web destination for news and comment on renewable energy and Elpis.org, a recycled paper bag/magazine distributed from health food stores in London, formerly his hometown for over a decade. He is also a happy herbivore.