Seaweed may be an efficient source of biofuel.
Image by secretlondon123 via Flickr
Transcript of the Audio Podcast:
Turning seaweed into biofuel… on this CurrentCast.
Biofuel is an appealing clean energy source because it can be used with modern vehicles and is carbon neutral. But concerns about using corn and soybean crops for biofuel instead of food have prompted researchers to search for alternate sources.
Khanh-Quang Tran, a researcher with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology thinks sugar kelp could provide a solution. He’s found rapidly heating the kelp to extremely high temperatures yields large amounts of biofuel.
Tran estimates it would take two tons of raw kelp to make one barrel of oil. His next steps include finding partners to scale up the technology and commercially grow sugar kelp.
Support for CurrentCast comes from the Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas. Learn more online at http://www.currentcast.org.
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