Auburn University is getting closer to providing help in solving the nation’s energy crisis.
Larry Fillmer, director of the Natural Resource Management and Development Institute, said AU will take a big step toward that goal this fall when it opens two new labs on campus that will allow it to make power and gas on a much larger scale than ever before.
“This can bring the forester, agronomist and engineer together,” he said. “It is more than a lab. It will have large-scale applications.”
U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., was at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences Friday for an update on the progress the university is making on energy research. As a member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Sessions is interested in Auburn’s work to produce synthetic gas and other forms of energy using wood chips, poultry litter and other agricultural and forestry by-products.
“We need to increase our supply of environmentally friendly fuel,” Sessions said. “I believe this process is very close.”