摘要
1 History The Energy&Environmental Research Center(EERC),in Grand Forks,North Dakota,USA,was officially founded in 1951 as the Robertson Lignite Research Laboratory-a federal facility under the US Bureau of Mines.However,the EERC’s roots date back to the 1890s when Earl Babcock,a chemistry professor at the University of North Dakota(UND),began studying the vast lignite coal resources of the state of North Dakota and investigating potential uses for them.The work of Babcock and others at UND led to the establishment of a US Bureau of Mines laboratory at the university and,in 1951,to the facility that is today the EERC.The Center became a federal energy technology centre under the US Department of Energy(DOE)in 1977 and was defederalized in 1983,at which time it became part of UND.
