What About Renewable Energy?

To begin with, the SUSI program keeps on delighting and inspires us again and again! Today we visited Oregon State University, an international public research center located in the nice town of Corvallis, Oregon! We were lucky to learn a lot about this new sustainable technologies laboratory specialized on biofuel. Additionally, experts told us about oil produced with the use of algae, described the process of fermentation of some chemical reactions, and showed us the most modern equipment for experiments. In our opinion, this laboratory and all its research have made an essential impact in development of renewable energy sources and, in particular, biotechnologies through all over the world! This information is considered to be very useful for our capstone projects as well.

After that we had lunch with Kristen Trippe, a researcher with Sun Grant Western Regional Center, and John Sessions from Department of Forest Engineering, Resources, and Management. They told us about the latest innovations in the process of production of solar panels and using biofuel in the future as modern fuel for airplanes. Informal conversation during the lunch let us ask them a lot of personal questions and establish contacts for future research and network which is the greatest opportunity of SUSI program!

After lunch we were lucky to visit the Hinsdale Wave Research Laboratory! The professors showed us unique 3D scaled wave energy converter models and described the benefits of using tidal energy. Furthermore, we watched testing of modern models defending buildings from floods. We cannot even imagine such efficient ability to prevent this hazardous natural disaster, but research of the laboratory showed that nothing is impossible!

In conclusion, I'd like to highlight that this day exceed all our expectations! We learned a lot of about new technologies in the sphere of energy and, what is more important, how to use them in different projects in our own countries! Thanks, SUSI! One more beautiful day in the USA!