Bio-Based Ideas

This is still from the SD-CAP Symposium. Another talk I wanted to summarize was Professor Stephen Mayfield's talk titled "Where we are - where we are going" The presentation slides can be found at the following location for anyone interested: http://algae.ucsd.edu/documents/SD-CABsymposiumMayfield.pdf Professor Mayfield’s talk was more of an overview talk meant to introduce the audience to the topic of algal biofuels. It could be divided into 2 parts: the problem, and the solution. The Problem Professor Mayfield started by making the point that between 1900 and today energy has been a rapidly growing market reaching $5.8 trillion today from just $ 0.4 billion. The future energy market is predicted to double in value within just ten years. There is an interesting correlation between energy use and wealth of a nation. The United States according this chart is one of the wealthiest nations in the world while also using proportionally more resources. The future growt...

I am still working on the second part of the focus on algae, and between research, and moving to a new place, I am not finding just enough time to flesh out the article just yet. It will come though! Instead tonight, I wanted to write an informal entry on a particular aspect of "bio-based" ideas: what anyone can do for environmental protection and conservation. In most of the industrialized world and beyond, internet access is pervasive. I find that I am spending quite a bit of time on the internet be it for email, searching information, social networking or gaming. I am sure others will have their own habits on the internet. It's easy to forget that each action on the internet actually has an environmental cost associated with it. The computers used to read this blog use electricity. Games can be demanding on the graphics card which if high-end can use even more energy than the CPU itself. Beyond the borders of your own computer, each action one takes puts a certain work...