Prof. discusses biofuel technology

TheDartmouth.com
By JOY CHEN
Published on Monday, October 19, 2009

Students must not be daunted in their attempts to improve sustainability in the world, despite the challenges associated with the task, Dartmouth environmental engineering professor Lee Lynd said in his lecture, “Sustainable Biofuels: A Personal Odyssey,” held at the Thayer School of Engineering on Friday.

Lynd — director and chief scientific officer of the Lebanon, N.H.-based biofuel company Mascoma — is well known for his research on the production of energy from plant biomass.

“There are only two resource transitions in the course of human history,” he said. “The first is from hunting and gathering to preindustrial agricultural society, and the second is from the preindustrial agricultural society to the industrial, non-sustainable resource base. The third transition, that from the non-sustainable to the sustainable industrial society, has yet to happen.”

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