Biodiesel Magazine!

While attending the recent National Biodiesel Conference in San Diego, CA we had the opportunity of meeting Ron Kotrba who is the editor of Biodiesel Magazine.  After the session where Mike and 7 other Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel had the opportunity to present Ron approached us with questions about our research.  We ended up setting up an interview for the following week and the results of that interview was published in March/April issue of Biodiesel Magazine!  What is even cooler than that is that a photo of Mike at the Bonneville Salt Flats holding the Algae Biodiesel they used for the SpeedWeek 2013 event. 

Check out the online version of the issue!
http://issuu.com/bbiinternational/docs/mar-apr14_bdm
or the main page talking about the Mar/Apr issue http://www.biodieselmagazine.com/issues/browse

You can also read the follow up done by the College of Science that also includes more about the conference and includes Alex McCurdy and Rhesa Ledbetter from the recent Utah State Today article.  http://www.usu.edu/ust/index.cfm?article=53677  A big thanks to Mary-Ann Muffoletto for the article!

Posters and Slideshow from the National Biodiesel Conference earlier this month.

Alex McCurdy's poster that was presented at the NBB Conference

Mike Morgan's poster that was presented at the NBB conference

Below is the Slideshow that Mike Morgan presented during the Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel breakout session at the National Biodiesel Conference.

Conference Updates from the NBB Site!

Here is the promised interview with Rhesa Ledbetter:

http://blog.biodieselconference.org/algae-biodiesel-fuel-from-utah-state/

Here is the direct link to the YouTube video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=C8TYIqrdpNA&list=UUjIaKojPkN70UhR2F1QoLyA

Also here are a whole bunch of photos from the conference.  There are a lot of pictures of us sprinkled throughout!

 http://www.flickr.com/photos/zimmcomm/sets/72157639995875044/

National Biodiesel Conference 2014 in San Diego, CA

The conference was a success!  The three of our students, which included graduate students Rhesa Ledbetter, and Alex McCurdy and undergraduate Mike Morgan, presented posters during the two hour session held last Tuesday and had a great turn out from people representing all facets of biodiesel.  Mike also presented a 10 minute snippet of the biodiesel research happening at Utah State during the first ever Next Generation Scientists for Biodiesel breakout session. The poster and breakout session combined generated a lot of interest and great contacts for all 3 of our students.

Rhesa was interviewed about attending the conference for the first time so keep your eyes peeled for that as we will link to it once we have it.

The team will also be part of an upcoming article in Biodiesel Magazine on biodiesel co-products so keep an eye out for that coming link as well!

The conference was very informative on the outlook of biodiesel as a whole with the industry producing a record 1.8 billion gallons in 2013.  The RFS called for only 1.28 billion gallons last year which means the industry is growing!  Nearly all of that biodiesel also met the required standards thanks to the growing BQ-9000 quality assurance program being fleshed out through the National Biodiesel Board.  Heavy focus was given to the lack of Government backing that is happening for the RFS and other renewable energy standards and the fight with our brothers in the oil industry.  There was lots of great information gathered through the various and diverse sessions.  It was a great conference and the team is looking forward to attending for the 3rd year in a row in 2015.

Back at It

It's been too long since we have checked in with you all and we are working to step it back up as we kick off the year. This winter has been slow due to limited funding and people power. We are working on our first few batches of biodiesel for the year currently! Also three of our students are heading to the National Biodiesel Conference in San Diego later this month. (2 grad students), Rhesa Ledbetter, and Alex McCurdy who each received scholarships to attend as well as had posters accepted will be presenting their posters. Also (undergraduate) Mike Morgan also had his poster accepted and will be presenting that as well as presenting at a breakout session featuring 7 student scientists. The team is looking forward to the conference and will keep it updated here during and following the conference so keep an eye out for those posts next week! We will work to keep updating the blog here and please send us any questions you might have any time! 

usulandspeed@gmail.com