By Tom Schueneman •
March 26, 2009
The Algae Biofuels World Summit concluded yesterday in San Francisco. The event was geared to active participants in the industry, and I had the opportunity to attend Monday’s all day pre-conference briefing highlighting key players in government, research, and business all pursuing the goal of scaling algal biofuels to a commercial enterprise level.
It is clear that algae is “hot” - but as is often the case with hot, there is no shortage of hype. A recurring theme throughout the day was the common mis-percepton of algae biofuel as “cheap and easy” and a one-size-fits-all solution to the world’s fuel energy needs.
Not so fast.
By Tom Schueneman •
March 3, 2009
Advanced biofuels will add thousands of jobs and billions of dollars to the U.S. economy.
By Tom Schueneman •
February 24, 2009
Alan Novak, Director of Alternative Fuels for Emerson Process Management and host of at least three BioEnergy Summits throughout the country, is optimistic for the future of advanced biofuels in meeting the nation and the world’s future transportation fuel needs.
By Tom Schueneman •
December 10, 2008
A first-of-its-kind summit in Madison, Wisconsin later this week will bring together researchers, innovators, policy makers, entrepreneurs and other industry leaders to discuss best practices for large-scale commercialization of second generation biofuels.
The BioRefinery/BioEnergy Summit, taking place on December 11th, is hosted by Emerson Process Management, a company that specializes in analysis, measurement, and automation of industrial processes and plant operation for oil & gas and other heavy industry. Emerson’s goal is to bring to bear their experience in plant operation, process automation, and analysis for the emerging biofuel industry. By establishing best practices for the biofuel industry, large-scale commercial production becomes viable.
I had an opportunity to speak with Alan Novak, Emerson’s Director of Alternative Fuels, about the upcoming summit and the outlook for biofuel and bioenergy.
By Ariel Schwartz •
July 30, 2008
But is it greenwashing?
Anheuser-Busch, the largest brewer in the US, announced today that its breweries will rely on renewable energies for 15 percent of their needs by 2010. The Houston brewery plans to use biogas from a nearby landfill combined with an on-site bio-energy recovery system (BERS) that will make use of brewing wastewater, and the Fairfield, California facility will use solar panels in addition to a BERS. The other US breweries will use only BERS.
When the facilities are completed, 10 out of the 12 Anheuser-Busch breweries in the US will use alternative fuels.
It’s tempting to shake our heads and exclaim that this is just another example of meaningless corporate greenwashing. But that might not be entirely true.
