Diary of a Mad Scientist

note: no RSVP needed, just show up:

Algae Bioenergy and local biofuels efforts presentation and lecture
Tuesday, January 9th, 6-9 pm
at Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia Street (at 21st), San Francisco
admission free, donations accepted

for more information: classregistration@girlmark.com
transit directions and info: http://www.atasite.org/about/
(please don’t call ATA, they wont’ be able to answer questions about the
talk as we’re just renting from them)

Speakers:
Karri Ving and/or Ben Jordan, San Francisco Biofuels Co-op (http://sfbiofuels.org/)
will present about the SF co-op and City of San Francisco biodiesel initiatives

Kari Lemons of Biodiesel Council of California (http://biodieselcouncil.org/) will present about the BCC’s statewide efforts to support sustainable feedstock production in California

featured speaker: algae researcher Jon Meuser, Ph.D. Candidate - Division of Environmental Science and Engineering, Colorado School of Mines , presenting about algae as a bioenergy feedstock:

Jon’s talk description:

Our society’s inevitable transition to real-time solar energy will
require a symposium of technologies that capture solar energy and
transform it into useable forms, including biofuels. Many biofuels
depend on residues of existing industries like agriculture or forestry
and are generally geographically dependent. However, major
displacement of fossil fuels will require the development of
fuel-specific crops suitable to many regions. Biodiesel is a
renewable, easily mobilized biofuel high in solar-derived energy
density that already represents about 1% of the U.S. diesel market.
Total displacement of the petrodiesel market by biodiesel will require
increases in oil availability not possible with traditional
agricultural crops or byproducts of existing industries. It is
estimated that algae can produce 100x more oil per acre than soy. As
current technical barriers are overcome, biodiesel from algae and
other non-traditional crops will likely alleviate the problem of
feedstock availability and global dependence on petrodiesel.

speaker bio:

A native of California’s central valley, Jonathan Meuser is currently
a graduate student at the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) in Golden,
Colorado studying biological fuel production and identifying organisms
with ideal properties for fuel production. His current research
focuses on the natural biodiversity of photosynthetic fuel production
by algae, including hydrogen and lipids. When he can get out of the
lab, Jon also enjoys teaching the fine art of biodiesel homebrewing
with his mobile biodiesel processor and is a co-organizer of the
Biodiesel Coops Conference (http://www.b100.org) held in July at CSM .

For more information about biodiesel algae, see topics in the
biodieselnow forum: http://www.biodieselnow.com/forums/13/ShowForum.aspx

for more information about this event: classregistration@girlmark.com
**** NO need to RSVP **