Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters: Academy Evenings presenter discusses the future of biofuels

Contact: Jason A. Smith, communications director

MADISON — Did you know that 50 million new cars roll off the assembly line each year—that’s 137,000 cars a day! If this current growth rate continues, there will be over 1 billion motor vehicles on the world’s roads by 2050. With retail gasoline prices on the rise and a globally dwindling supply of petroleum, we need to find clean and plentiful means of fueling the cars of the future. Will Wisconsin’s pioneering efforts in bioenergy—fuel derived from such renewable sources as plants, trees, and agricultural waste—today transform the way we drive and live a generation from now?

Tim Donohue, UW–Madison professor of bacteriology and head of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, discusses the growing field of bioenergy in the forthcoming Academy Evenings presentation, What’s Driving My Car? 2050 Biofuels and Other Sustainable Energy Sources, as part of the Wisconsin Academy’s “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” series of public forums. This free Academy Evenings event will be held on March 16, 2010, from 7:00–8:30 pm, at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art lecture hall, Overture Center for the Arts in Madison. Seating is first-come, first served. Doors open at 6:15 pm.

The “Wisconsin 2050: Pioneering the Future” Academy Evenings series is sponsored by the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation, Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, University of Wisconsin–Madison, M&I Bank, the Evjue Foundation, and Isthmus Publishing Company.

About Academy Evenings

Academy Evenings engage the public in a wide variety of topics of public interest and feature Wisconsin’s leading thinkers, scholars, and artists. These free forums are intended to encourage public interaction with these leaders in an intimate atmosphere designed to foster discussion and build community. The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters sponsors Academy Evenings regularly in Overture Center for the Arts in Madison and at other venues across the state. For more information on Academy Evenings in your area, visit wisconsinacademy.org .