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Conference Call on New Biodiesel from Algae |
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The call had three speakers. The first, Jim McMillan of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory gave an overview of the current US biofuel situation. According to him, a lot of current interest is in cellulosic ethanol, since corn ethanol doesn't scale up very well. At this point, the cost of cellulosic ethanol seems to be double or more that of corn ethanol. The economics are still being clarified by demonstration projects. Until there is some sort of climate legislation that raises the price of carbon, it will be difficult to overcome the price gap. The second speaker was Reid Detchon of Energy Future Coalition, who spoke about political factors affecting biofuels. The big legislation they are looking forward to is the climate-change legislation that would raise the price of carbon, because they believe either McCain or Obama would support such legislation. Such legislation would make biofuels more cost-competitive. This fall, the EPA is scheduled to examine the carbon impact of various biofuels over their life cycles. This could have an impact on how corn ethanol is viewed relative to other biofuels. The third speaker was Jonathan Wolfson of Solazyme. I found this the most interesting of the three presentations. Solazyme has a process for making biodiesel using algae. Instead of growing algae outside, Solazyme grows micro-algae in tanks in the dark inside, and feeds the micro-algae biomass, such as processed switchgrass. They believe they have developed a technique that is not far from commercial development.
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Tags : solazyme, growing-algae-in-dark, algae-cultivation, unique-ideas,
Sub Topics - Cultivation,
Algae Fuel Companies,
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