$122 million grant to convert sunlight to fuel
07/23/10 San Francisco Chronicle — Scientists from UC Berkeley, Stanford University and the Caltech have been given $122 million to come up with ways to produce fuels directly from sunlight. The U.S. Department of Energy announced the grant Thursday, with the mission to develop practical methods of manufacturing "carbon neutral" fuels similar to the way plants create energy via photosynthesis. "We're not talking about solar panels," said Peidong Yang, a professor of materials science and engineering at UC Berkeley who heads the Bay Area branch of the project. "We are going to develop technology to convert solar energy directly into chemical fuels like methanol, ethanol or just gasoline, through CO2 reduction."