Alt-Fuels Pioneer Wins $100,000 Award for Sustainability

Lee Lynd, a Dartmouth College professor and the co-founder of Mascoma Corp., a cellulosic biomass-to-ethanol company, has received the first Lemelson-MIT Award for Systainability honoring his 25 years of achievements and research into alternative fuels. He received the $100,000 award on April 2nd, which recognizes inventors whose products or processes improve economic opportunity and community well-being, and at the same time protect and restore the natural environment.

Professor Lynd and his colleagues have researched and identified advanced technologies for converting biomass such as grass, using cellulose-utilizing bacteria to produce ethanol, resulting in a sustainable carbon cycle with no net emissions of carbon dioxide –
a process configuration known as consolidated bioprocessing (CBP).

“Decades ago, Lee Lynd started doing something about global warming and the rapid depletion of the world’s non-renewable energy resources,” said Merton Flemings, director of the Lemelson-MIT Program. “He continued to experiment and pursue his ideas even when the conventional wisdom said they couldn’t be done.”

“Lee’s groundbreaking research has driven forward the public policy debate, the business world, and the fundamental science of bioenergy,” said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council, and one of Lynd’s nominators for the $100,000 Lemelson-MIT Award for Sustainability. “His work has helped frame our basic understanding of the sustainable potential for bioenergy and especially biofuels.”

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Business Wire