After several years of involvement in the renewable energy sector the company founders saw the flaws and limitations in using agricultural land for the production of energy. The use of crops, such as canola (oilseed rape) was also inherently vulnerable to spikes in the cost of the underlying commodity. After extensive research on various renewable energy alternatives, Scottish Bioenergy was founded in 2007 with the objective of making biofuels from algae.
The company has licensed patent pending systems and methods of biofuel production using novel bioreactors and refining systems.
David Van Alstyne (St. Cyrus, Scotland)
David is the managing director of Scottish Bioenergy. He is a serial entrepreneur with 20 years experience in venture capital, intellectual property, defence contracting and the design and international marketing of new technology. Mr Van Alstyne is the co-inventor ( with his daughter Laylah ) of the underlying techologies licensed by Scottish Bioenergy. He raised money for public companies in the 80's on Wall Street and later moved to the private equity markets. He has authored 5 US patents and 2 International patents in areas including biological warfare agent decontamination and concrete vitrification.
Dr. Adam W. Bell (San Francisco, CA - Oxford, England)
As an entrepreneur and licensed patent attorney, Dr. Bell is working as an advisor to Scottish Bioenergy. He is the founder of Bell and Associates, a patent law firm in San Francisco. He has a PhD. in Biochemistry from Oxford University (1994). Dr. Bell has previously served as scientific advisor to two biotechnology equity funds and currently serves as an advisor to Davis Bioscience Group and Nutragenomics Inc.
Dr. Matthew Kaser (San Francisco, CA)
Dr. Kaser is a licensed patent attorney and is working as an advisor to Scottish Bioenergy. He has a PhD. from Oxford University in Biochemistry (1988). He also holds a Bs.C (Zoology) and an M.Sc. (Biochemistry) from the University of Wales. In the course of his career he was worked with several genetic engineering companies and has authored 14 peer reviewed papers.
Prof. John Raven, FRS, FRSE (Dundee, Scotland)
Professor Raven is the senior scientist for Scottish Bioenergy. Prof. Raven is a highly respected scientist and a member of the Royal Society of London and the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He graduated with a PhD. from Cambridge University and has been a leading researcher in microbiology, with specific emphasis on algae, for almost 40 years. He is currently the Boyd-Baxter Professor of Biology at Dundee University and a member of staff at the Scottish Crop Research Institute.