CHAMPAIGN , Ill. (WAND) - U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm toured the University of Illinois' Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bio-product Innovation.

Granholm said centers like this are vital to creating a clean energy future the Biden Administration is working toward.

"We know that the Midwest will provide solutions to cleaning up our transportation system as well as to heating and cooling our homes and industry," Granholm said. "We don't have to simply put carbon pollution into the air. We know that we can put people to work by next generation processes that also save the planet."

This facility is one of four Bio-energy centers for the U. S. Department of Energy.

Brian Jacobson, associate director of strategic operations at the center, said most of the work here is funded by a D.O.E. grant.

"We have a grant from the Department of Energy. It's called CABBI - the Center for Advanced Bio-energy and Bio-products Innovation - and that grant is work that we are doing with sugar cane that's been modified to also produce oil as part of that process," Jacobson said. 

Over five years, the center receives $115 million to do vital research for a clean energy future.

"Our objectives are to make the basic research science discoveries and the technical innovations necessary for bio-energy to become both economically and ecologically sustainable," said Director of the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bio-product Innovation Andrew Leakey.

While the University of Illinois is the lead institution, they have 23 partners over the country working with them.

Jacobson said it's an amazing opportunity for both scientists and students.

"It could really define some of the future of energy and discovery that we can do," he said. "It was great also to see some of our students who are working very hard on this project be rewarded and get to understand as she explained some of the implications of the work they're doing and what that could mean for the future."