Algae to fuel a renewable future

[Eug]

Something a bit different from the usual. As some of you know might know, I'm doing research on algae and their potential to produce fuels. In my personal instance I'm looking at their ability to produce oil (i.e. vegetable oil) which can then be used to make bio-diesel. We have also successfully produced bio-hydrogen from GMOs.

In this arena there are a lot of politics at play and one of them has been trying to get government to start providing funding and to drive policies, etc. Keep in mind that our focus is not on climate change but more so energy/food security and sustainability. Our group launched a pilot facility today hoping to drive some discussion and funding within the industry.

What we hope to do is flesh out some of the numbers on the large scale and put theory into practice.

Here's the link for those who might be interested: http://www.uq.edu.au/news/?article=26054

[rayke1938]

Very interesting EUG thanks for posting.

Cheers

Ray

[ellicat]

Surprised you're not a gun luderick fisherman :silly:

[Eug]

Surprised you're not a gun luderick fisherman :silly:

actually i have caught a few...

[tomca]

Isn't the carbon tax being collected to fast track this sort of research?

Or is it just for more revenue to spend on welfare (we seem to have fewer and fewer workers paying tax)

[Eug]

At this stage no additional grants or funding for research has been allocated from the proposed carbon tax. Won't be surprised if the low-middle income earners receive the bulk of the carbon tax funds.

You only need to see our industry partners to know that a bulk of the funding is from private enterprises. The government only wants to ride the wave after we've sourced funds. My project is funded by a USA company, no surprises who will part own the intellectual property.

[Old Scaley]

This is not a political statement because it applies to all sides of parliament, BUT what a shame to see that our governments don't support science the way that they should and used to, and that talented academics now have to be part salesman, part politician to get funding for even basic research rather than concentrating on what they spent many years studying and building knowledge about. And that politicians and the public in general don't accord bodies like the CSIRO and Universities the respect they deserve, especially when they come to conclusions that don't meet the financial or political outcomes people want. Good luck with the project, Eug :cheer:

[katty]

the future is in duck weed not algae.