The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation will serve as a stop for the Auburn University and Renewable Energy Systems' (RES) Coast-to-Coast and Back Renewable Energy Tour next week.

Wayne Keith, a partner in RES, has developed gasification technology that enables regular gasoline-fueled vehicles to be powered with a wide range of biomass materials, including wood, switchgrass and crop residues. Auburn University is partnering with RES to tour a biomass powered pickup (the "Bio-Truck") across the United States to raise public awareness of renewable energy and its economic, environmental and social benefits. Auburn Professor Dr. David Bransby will tour with the Bio-Truck.

The Coast-to-Cost tour will roll into the Noble Foundation's Ardmore-campus at 9 a.m., Friday, Oct. 3. for a press conference and demonstration of the Bio-Truck, which will use primarily scrap wood on the tour, but also switchgrass, broiler litter, used paper, municipal solid waste (MSW), and refuse derived fuel (RDF). At all stops a small scale stationary gasifier will also be operated on biomass to demonstrate electric power production from these materials.

"Recently, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion about biofuels in our country," said Joe Bouton, Ph.D., Senior Vice President and Forage Improvement Division Director. "Dr. Bransby and Mr. Keith's Bio-Truck is a tangible example that these fuel sources are today's realities, not distant possibilities. This truck functions just as any other truck, except that it uses materials such as switchgrass and wood as fuel."

The Noble Foundation is also contributing to the alternative energy effort through its own research programs as well as its affiliation with the Oklahoma Bioenergy Center (OBC). Through the collaboration of the OBC's contributing institutions, the Noble Foundation, University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University, the OBC intends to deliver practical outcomes to enable the competitive and sustainable production of liquid biofuels in Oklahoma, and contribute to the national research effort.

Bouton, who began federally-funded research on switchgrass for cellulosic ethanol in the early 1990s, will also provide insight to the Noble Foundation's efforts with switchgrass during Friday's press conference.

"Friday will provide the public and the media an opportunity to hear about the Noble Foundation's research, as well as see how similar work is resulting in real-world solutions to our energy problems," Bouton said. "It should be an exciting and informative demonstration."

The Coast-to-Coast and Back Renewable Energy Tour will kick off Monday, Sept. 29, in Charleston, S.C., and take a southern route to San Diego, then north to Los Angeles, and San Francisco, stopping at different renewable energy installations en route.

Following the trip to the West Coast, Keith will then switch to a second Bio-Truck and participate in "Escape from Berkeley," a three-day road race from Berkeley, Calif., to Las Vegas for vehicles powered by non-commercially available fuels. The tour will conclude on Friday, October 17.

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News Release Issued: September 29, 2008

For media inquiries concerning the Noble Foundation, please contact J. Adam Calaway, Director of Public Relations, at 580.224.6209 or by email at jacalaway@noble.org.

The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation, Inc. (www.noble.org), headquartered in Ardmore, Okla., is a nonprofit organization conducting agricultural, forage improvement and plant biology research; assisting farmers and ranchers through educational and consultative agricultural programs; and providing grants to nonprofit charitable, educational and health organizations.