BOZEMAN — Recently, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Montana State University and Utah State University a three-year, $900,000 grant to study the oil produced by algae, which could be a renewable source of biodiesel.
The two universities will split the money more or less down the middle, said Brent Peyton, a professor of chemical and [...]

WASHINGTON — NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has ceased communications after operating for more than five months. As anticipated, seasonal decline in sunshine at the robot’s arctic landing site is not providing enough sunlight for the solar arrays to collect the power necessary to charge batteries that operate the lander’s instruments.
Mission engineers last received a signal [...]

SEATTLE (AP) — Could the next green fuel be pea-green pond scum? Supporters think algae could someday be turned into cheap fuel for automobiles and airplanes, and are betting heavily with infusions of venture capital money and intensive research.
About $180 million in venture capital money has been raised for algae research, with more than half [...]

While alternative fuels are being heavily studied for automobiles, we’re now seeing a push from a different direction. The aviation industry has taken an intense interest in the subject, and this might be enough to push biofuels over the edge into economic viability. The aviation industry produces only about one-ninth as much carbon dioxide as [...]

We all want to get rid of our dependency on fossil fuels and their side effects. Alternative sources of energy seems clean and green but they have a poor conversion rate which makes some people extra cynical about the viability of renewable energy. But researchers at U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) [...]

By S. Heather Duncan - hduncan@macon.com

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When folks at Alterra Bioenergy hit supply and distribution problems just as their new biodiesel business got off the ground, they re-examined their product and decided to make something entirely new.
The Macon-based company with a refinery in Gordon developed the [...]