A team lead by Ohio State (North Lab), along with Bill Cannon from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Toufiq Reza and Darshan Pahinkar from Florida Institute of Technology, seek to reduce the amount of energy required to make ethylene and propylene for plastics from petroleum by using engineered bacteria to convert lignin polymers and CO2 into ethylene and propylene instead. DOE Announces $264 Million for Basic Research in Support of Energy Earthshots™ | Department of Energy