Students take algae-to-biofuel project to MIT by J.T. Leonard. Photo: Tessa Churchill, left, and Holly Jacobson. The students are competing in the regional finals of the Siemens Math, Science & Technology competition.
Holly Jacobson and Tessa Churchill, seniors at Greely High School in Cumberland, are at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology today, explaining how they would use fast-growing algae to help solve the energy crisis.
In a nutshell, the young women may have found a way to produce more biodiesel fuel while consuming fewer organic resources.
The project got its start two years ago when Jacobson and Churchill began examining natural oils stored in fatty acids — called lipids — in various forms of marine algae. Recently, they identified a strain of algae that produces more oil for a given mass.
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I have posted about producing biofuel from microalgae recently on my site. I find your blog very useful.
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