Saturday, October 3, 2009
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Founder, VA Clean Energy Network
This blog is dedicated to discussions about emerging clean energy technologies and their commercial viability both domestically in the United States and Internationally. Featured aspects of this site include gathered data from experts around the world and what they are saying about the commercial viability of certain clean energy technology.
Carole C. Inge
Founder, VA Clean Energy Network
Virginia Institute of Marine Science Receives $3 Million to Turn Algae into Biodiesel
ReplyDeleteVirginia Institute of Marine Science is the recipient of $3 million — seed money from StatoilHydro, a Norwegian energy company — to convert algae from the York River into biodiesel fuel. The plan is to cut the amount of harmful nutrients, such as phosphorus and nitrogen, entering the Chesapeake Bay and create an alternative source of energy.
"What we really want to do is turn pollution into fuel," said J. Emmett Duffy, a VIMS professor leading the program.
VIMS will pump water from the river near its Gloucester Point campus onto a large conveyor belt. A plastic screen on the belt will trap the nutrients while the water is recycled back into the river.
The nutrients, which sit on the belt for at least a week, turn into algae before researchers harvest and store it. From there, researchers take the algae into a lab where oils are extracted and converted into biodiesel. This project may be one of the first pilot projects in Virginia but there is news of other such efforts in the works.