Welcome to the Badger Energy Bulletin, a weekly column on the intersection of energy technology and policy through the lens of the Badger State.
Who doesn’t love a Cinderella story?
When it comes to providing affordable, reliable, and clean electricity — and empowering citizens to share the economic benefits — Wisconsin is failing.
University of Wisconsin–Madison scientists used advanced microscopic imaging to better understand the structure and function of these granules and their roles in microbial biology. They found that stunting cell growth caused bacteria to accumulate significantly more PHB and PP concentrated in larger granules, suggesting the organelles play a role in stress response.
Small-scale nuclear reactors, rooftop solar, and the integration of solar energy and agriculture could provide Wisconsin with an array of benefits beyond slowing climate change, while renewable biogas faces significant financial and technical limitations.
An associate professor of bacteriology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Amador-Noguez uses systems-level analyses – including metabolomics, computational modeling, and genetic engineering – to advance understanding of metabolism in microorganisms capable of producing biofuels.
Grace Gooley is a senior at the University of Wisconsin–Madison majoring in chemistry and environmental studies. She’s working on her senior thesis in the Ive Hermans lab, where research focuses on the sustainable synthesis of chemicals using catalysts with the goal of producing commercial compounds in ways that generate less waste, consume less energy, or emit less greenhouse gases than existing techniques.
Blaise Manga Enuh, a postdoctoral researcher with the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, published an essay in The Conversation about his work on a genome-scale metabolic model of Novosphingobium aromaticivorans, a bacterium that can convert very complex chemicals in plant waste to valuable bioproducts.