- Arizona's sunny, dry weather makes it the perfect location for farming algae to produce renewable fuels, according to an executive of a national biofuels group.
From the Yuma Sun:
Arizona's sunny, dry weather makes it the perfect location for farming algae to produce renewable fuels, according to an executive of a national biofuels group.
In addition, the state's coal-fired power plants produce quantities of carbon dioxide that would allow for more efficient production of algae, said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board, which held a convention and exposition in Phoenix last week.
However, Jobe and others at the conference said, technology that would allow for mass-production of algae is probably a decade away. Biofuels are produced from plants and plant derivatives such as soybean oil used in deep fryers. Jobe called algae the future of biofuels because it has a higher yield from fewer resources and can be farmed on land that can't be used to produce food crops, unlike, for example, corn that goes into ethanol.
