Thursday, July 29, 2010 5:00 to 7:15 p.m.
Banquet Room, Rosemount Community Center
Learn more about the launch of wind energy research at UMore Park and opportunities for related renewable energy innovation.
HIGHLIGHTS
Learn about the wind energy research
consortium project launching at UMore Park, funded by the U.S.
Department of Energy
Discuss innovations in renewable energy in
the context of a sustainable community
Explore opportunities for
regional economic development through renewable energy technologies
View
informational exhibits and talk with researchers about aspects of the
wind energy research project, as well as other energy-related research
and education activities
The event will include a light meal and refreshments starting at 5:00pm. Featured speakers:
Carla Carlson, Executive Director, Office for UMore Park Academic Initatives and VP for Operations
Mostafa Kaveh, Associate Dean for Research and Planning, College of Science and Engineering
Ronald E. Thomas, Ph.D, President, Dakota County Technical College
Rebuilding the Aquatic Species Program at National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) Phil Pienkos, Principal
Research Supervisor, NREL
Presented by the Institute on the
Environment's Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment (IREE)
Low petroleum prices and the projected high costs of algal biofuel
production contributed to DOE's decision to terminate the Aquatic
Species Program in 1996. Ten years later, petroleum cost volatility and
increased interest in energy security and greenhouse gas emissions led
to a reevaluation of the potential for algae-to-biofuels. As a result,
NREL restarted its algal biofuels program. This presentation will
outline NREL's current efforts to rebuild an integrated algal biofuels
program and will spotlight recent data from projects begun in the last
three years. A networking reception will be held at the conclusion of
the presentation.
Please check back on the IonEvents blog on Thursday, July 8 for a link to a recording.
About
Phil Pienkos Philip T. Pienkos has over 25 years of
biotechnology experience in the pharmaceutical, chemical and energy
sectors. He is a co-founder of Molecular Logix, an early stage drug
discovery/development company, and Celgene, an established
biotech/pharma company. He has served as research director at Energy
BioSystems where he led a group involved in fermentation development and
biocatalyst improvement and at Enchira Biotechnology where he led a
group responsible for protein therapeutic discovery and production.
While at Celgene he worked on the development of biotechnology-based
methods to produce pharmaceutical intermediates, and worked at Lederle
Laboratories, where he developed novel mode-of-action screens for new
antibiotics. Dr. Pienkos is a co-inventor on two patents and two
additional patents pending, has co-authored numerous technical
publications (including papers on chloroplast replication in algae and
nitrogen fixation in cyanobacteria), and regularly speaks at national
and international conferences. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular
Biology from the University of Wisconsin and post-doctoral training at
the University of Texas. He served six years on the editorial board of
Applied and Environmental Microbiology, is a founding member of the
Algal Biomass Organization, and has recently been reelected for a second
term on the board of directors for that organization. He is part of a
team of algae experts from NREL and Sandia National Laboratory who
worked with the Department of Energy to organize National Algal Biofuels
Technology Roadmap Workshop held in December, 2008 and currently at
work putting together a roadmap document to help accelerate the
commercialization of algal biofuels.
The opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author(s) and not necessarily
of the Institute on the Environment/University of Minnesota.
