Biofuels for breakfast

Sweden’s contributions to the global landscape of patented inventions for biofuels and biorefineries: Lessons and challenges for the future of bioenergy – This was the title for a breakfast seminar co-arranged by The West Swedish Chemistry & Materials Cluster, CIIST (Chalmers Initiative for Innovation and Sustainability Transition) and f3 on Friday June 10th at Johanneberg Science Park in Göteborg.

A presentation was first held by Professor Gregory Graff from Colorado State University, followed by a discussion with Professor Tomas Kåberger of Chalmers. The starting point for the discussion was Professor Graff's analysis of trends in global patent data for biofuel and biorefinery related inventions, showing the development in the area globally and over time. One conclusion from the presentation was the diverging trends in the Western world and Asia respectively, a development which could be explained by several different factors, e.g. investment strategies and policy. An article is now available in Nature Biotechnology that covers the content of the presentation: The rise and fall of innovation in biofuels.

The seminar attracted about 40 participants from academy, industry, research institutes and regional administrative agencies.