World energy experts meet in Houston this week for the Strategies for a High Stakes World: Innovation, Investment, and the Future of Energy conference. Participants will discuss issues involving the future of oil and gas security and the burgeoning role of alternative fuels.
Texas Tech scientists can speak on a range of alternative energy topics, including their own collaborative investigations into new methods to more cheaply and efficiently produce ethanol and other fuels.
Through multidisciplinary research that combines Texas Tech?s agricultural, chemical, engineering and business expertise, the university is working to increase production of renewable biofuels including ethanol, biodiesel and lignocellulosic biomass ? or fuel developed from grasses and other plant matter.
Experts include:
Dick Auld, chairman of the Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, can speak about the production of feedstocks and genetic manipulation of crops needed for production of biofuels.
Dominick J. Casadonte Jr., chairman of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, can speak about biofuel development using nontraditional crop plant extracts, such as cottonseed oil.
Mike Galyean, professor of animal and food sciences, can speak about using co-products created during ethanol and biodiesel production to support animal industries and optimize economic return.
Naz Karim, chairman of the Department of Chemical Engineering, can speak about new pre-treatments and enzymes that can be used to more effectively convert biomass into fuel.
Timothy Maxwell, professor of mechanical engineering, can speak to the development of engines using methanol, ethanol, natural gas, hydrogen and hybrid electric drive trains.
Terry McInturff, director of the Rawls College of Business Center for Energy Commerce, can speak about international energy policy and law and the marketing and distribution of biofuels.
John Zak, chairman of the Department of Biological Sciences, can speak to the possible benefits of using arid-land fungi in biofuel development.