ASU brought renewable energy experts together this week to network and showcase their research.
The three-day Arizona Workshop on Renewable Energy began Monday morning on the second floor of the Memorial Union at the Tempe campus.
Stephen Goodnick, the University’s associate vice president for research and director of the Arizona Institute for Renewable Energy, said that participants in the conference included researchers, government employees and industry leaders who are all trying to find alternative sources of energy.
“This conference is bringing together people in industry research and government to showcase their work with renewable energy,” Goodnick said. “The problem is that a lot of the time these people don’t get to talk to each other, and the conference is a place for them to learn and network with one another.”
The conference included presentations with titles like “Intersection of University Technology With Industry,” “Interfacing Solar Energy to Electric Power Grid,” and “Microaglae-Based Biofuel Research and Development.”
Goodnick said that ASU is a leader in sustainability research and that renewable energy and biofuel research are important elements in the sustainability movement.
“We have one of the largest sustainability research programs in the country here at ASU, and we do a lot of work with biofuels,” he said. “This workshop is a forum for us to showcase our research.”
Milton Sommerfeld, a professor in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, gave a presentation about the potential of algae as a possible fuel source.
“ASU has been doing work with algae for 25 years,” Sommerfeld said. “Algae could be a good fuel source for several reasons: It carries out photosynthesis, it is widely distributed in both fresh and salt water, there are over 6,500 identified species and it isn’t a food source.”
Sommerfeld said that the use of food sources as fuel has gained notoriety over the past several years because of food shortages in different parts of the world.
The federal government funded algae research for a long time in response to fuel shortages in the late 1970s, but discontinued funding in 1996 when fuel prices dropped and the country lost interest, Sommerfeld said.
“In recent years, algae research has been primarily funded by industry and venture capitalists who see its potential,” he said.
Sommerfeld said that the oil found in algae yields 10 to 100 times the amount of oil found in other sources of biofuels such as sugarcane and certain trees.
“Think about when you’re walking by a creek or river and you see a puddle that is about to dry up,” he said. “If you look, you can see the oil over the top of the water.”
Sommerfeld said that it is important to build up the biofuel industry using algae as a base and pitched his belief to the audience of about 30 biofuel experts.
“Algae technology is something that has not yet been put in the marketplace, yet, but it has great potential,” he said.
Reach the reporter at jaking5@asu.edu.
