The US Air Force Academy has partnered with the Air Force Research Lab and Cool Clean Technologies, Inc., an Eagan, Minn., company to help develop methods to produce biofuels based on algae oil. “These partnerships provide another superb research thrust for our cadets and the Air Force Academy in an exciting new technology,” said Don Veverka, director of the academy’s Environmental Research Center. Cadets from various disciplines will participate, including involvement in a potential pilot-scale production facility. Academy officials are also in talks with a researcher from Brooklyn University, N.Y., on cooperative research that would entail further investigation of additional algae strains as biofuels. (USAFA release)
An April 16 explosion destroyed a building at Northrop Grumman’s Innovation Systems plant in Promontory, Utah, where the company makes solid rocket motors for the U.S. government and commercial rocket companies.