During a five-day event in Singapore, representatives from 23 countries convened to discuss all things biofuels. The Keystone Symposium on Biofuels brought together academia and policy makers from the U.S., China, Europe and Asia, including Stephen P. Mayfield, director of the San Diego Center for Algae at the University of California San Diego, and Martin Kellar from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Mayfield provided a retrospective look on the symposium for Biorefining Magazine, explaining that three main points could summarize what many of the attendees took away from the event.

The first aspect Mayfield pointed out is the fact that “we are running out of fossil fuel quicker then we previously thought. Demand is going up and discovery has no way to keep pace.” We are burning fossil fuels at an accelerated rate, he said, “much faster than previously thought.” Stemming from the increased use is the accelerated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. “To be blunt,” he said, “climate change is real, it is coming faster than we expected even from just a few years ago, and in spite of significant organized effort to argue otherwise, we are likely going to see serious climate change in the near future.”

While our diminishing fossil fuel pool, or the assertion that climate change is happening sooner than expected, made up Mayfield’s first two points, he also stated a third point, explaining that we have made significant technical progress at producing fuels from renewable biological sources, adding that pilot plants to demonstrate economic viability are being built now, and will come online in the next year or two. “I think these technical achievements gave everyone the perspective that we will be able to produce biofuels at significant levels in the future.”

“The question on everyone’s mind is now, Can we produce enough biofuels to impact points one and two in a time frame that allows us to continue on as we previously have? Or do we need to really change the way we live? I guess the answer to that question is to be determined.”

Although we may have the technology to impact our energy needs in the next few years, Yvonne Psaila, director of marketing and communications for Keystone, stated that conference goers also seemed to agree that there is no single silver bullet with one specific technology providing all of the answers.

The event was held at Jurong Island, home to more than 90 leading petroleum, petrochemical, and specialty chemical and manufacturing companies, according to Psaila. The island houses refineries and research facilities from the likes of BASF, BP, Celanese, ExxonMobil, DuPont, Mitsui Chemicals, Chevron Oronite and others.