Every time I see an image of oil gushing out into the Atlantic
Ocean, or hear a conversation about our need to find alternative
fuel sources, I think of the promise of biofuels. Like any other
technology, there are pluses and minuses, but when I hear
someone dismissing biofuels as requiring more energy to create
than they produce, I have a ready response. Last November, I
attended a seminar entitled “Can Algae Replace Petroleum as a
Clean, Low Carbon, Homegrown Fuel for our Military and More?”
And my takeaway from this highly informative seminar was that it
is not only possible to produce biofuels in an energy-efficient
manner, but it can also be done in a way that alleviates another
huge problem — water pollution due to waste-water runoff. The
seminar speakers included Jonathan Trent, Ph.D. of NASA, Chris
Tindal of the Navy, William Harrison of the Air Force, and Roy
Minson of SAIC (a government contractor). All of these experts
agreed that the US’s continuing dependence on the quickly
dwindling supply of fo