St. Louis hailed as one of 'Kings of Algae'
St. Louis Business Journal
Friday, August 28, 2009
Biofuels Digest has singled out St. Louis as one of the "Kings of Algae" in a reader poll Thursday.
St. Louis, San Diego, Seattle and the Silicon Valley have risen above the pack over the past year, the biofuels publication said.
As of Friday, St. Louis was winning the poll with 45 votes, or nearly 63 percent of responses.
St. Louis stands out because it is the home to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Creve Coeur, the Enterprise Rent-a-Car Institute of Renewable Energy, a new Energy Frontier Research Center award (Washington University and the Danforth Center) that will establish the Center for Advanced Biofuels Systems (CABS), the Photosynthetic Antenna Research Center, which focuses research on energy transfer systems in organisms that convert solar energy to chemical energy and an early stage algae company Phycal, the biofuels publication noted.
The Taylor family gave $25 million to establish the Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute, which is led by biofuels scientist Richard Sayre.
Algae is a superior alternative fuel source compared with corn because it doesn't directly compete with the food supply and can be harvested 365 days a year, Sayre said.
Algae fuel is much cheaper, too, with cost estimates at $45 a barrel, $25 cheaper than today's $70 oil barrels.
