Could Biofuels Be Connecticut's Next Big Breakthrough?

STORRS--Think of biofuel, and what comes to mind is vast acres of Midwest corn for ethanol, or a hobbyist fueling his tractor with old French fry fat. But in a lab at the University of Connecticut, researchers are looking into commercial-scale biofuel manufacturing using cooking oil, switchgrass and--perhaps most intriguing--algae.

The UConn team has received a $1.5 million federal energy grant they will use to transform a tiny lab where the dining halls' used cooking oil bubbles into fuel and runs the campus buses. This small room will become the test site for an industrial scale production of biofuels. They believe this could be the basis of a solid, local fuel economy.

Biofuels can be made of many things, from cooking oil to plants. Producing them requires relatively little space and leaves little environmental impact, said Richard Parnas, professor of chemical engineering at UConn, pointing to a cone-shaped container smelling like French fries in his campus lab.

Connecticut began to make small steps toward a biofuels industry six years ago, by classifying biofuel as a renewable energy resource. The UConn venture is one result, along with another biofuel producer and several biodiesel distributors.

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