We spoke about a convention coming up soon at the USM campus. USM will host the Kindle Bioneers Convention (http://www.kindledinme.com/) from October 17-19. They tell me that the conference will have numerous speakers of importance in the green industry speaking on many different subjects. From oceanography to air movement technology, all alternative fields are open game. The only downside to this event is that organizers are billing it as a student’s event at USM despite the $300 gate price. Students from New Hampshire and Vermont are being bused down to attend, but with this years tuition increase, are any USM students going to be able to afford the admission? There are several volunteer slots available and the PIRG team talked of video taping the talks for students who couldn’t attend.
Archive for September, 2008
BioFuel, USM Should Reconsider
Sitting in class yesterday I heard that USM converted to using only bio-fuels to heat the campus last winter but stopped because of the possibility that using bio-fuel may be taking food out of hungry mouths. The students mentioned that because the school feared the corn used to make the ethanol to heat the school was going to contribute to a food shortage or price increase, the school suspended buying bio-fuels. My argument against this decision is two fold.
First, ethanol production doesn’t decrease food supplies, it increases them. I’m no expert and this is all second hand information so don’t take my word for it, youtube it. The food vs. fuel debate is erroneous. 85% of all corn in this country is fed to cattle, not humans, but cattle are not evolved to eat corn. Cattle evolved eating grass and by eating corn they would shorten their life cycle drastically if we didn’t shorten it for them and turn them into tasty burgers. Ethanol is produced by fermenting corn with yeast but the yeast only eat the starch of the kernel leaving the protein rich kernel untouched in a produced called distillers grains. Distillers grains are the byproduct of the ethanol process and contain no indigestible starch, so when cattle eat distillers grains, they gain 17% more weight than cattle fed with the unprocessed grains. Its healthier for the cows to eat this product and they process it more completely. Instead of leaving the starch in the fields as cow patties, we can take it out before the cows eat it to drive our cars.
Furthermore, the fact that ethanol production actually makes more food for humans by delivering healthier cattle to slaughter much faster doesn’t even matter. In my limited research of ethanol, I’ve never read or heard of anyone using it to heat a home or business. It was more likely that USM was using a biofuel oil in a conventional heating oil based furnace. As far as I know heating biofuel is made with soy or other plant oil and is sometimes mixed with regular petrol heating oil. I haven’t heard anything about soy bean oil or other biofuels other than ethanol to be mistakenly blamed for rising food costs. I will continue to read around but doubt I will find anything.
USM Should reconsider using bio-fuel to heat its buildings. If we were really concerned with taking food away from hungry people, maybe some one with some motivation could convince USM to invest in the $3,000 worth of equipment that could process waste restaurant vegetable frying oil into heating oil. It would be even less expensive than bio-fuel, would be a first for the area, and most importantly it would make use for an other wise wasted resource that’s thrown on the trash heap.
Its not often that I commend USM for doing something good, usually I’m complaining. Using biofuel is what we should be doing, its a using the school as a trend setting role model to set a positive message for the community. We need to step back into that role.
Converting Waste Cellulose Into Cheap E85
In my search of all things E85 I wasn’t able to turn up much information on using waste cellulose as a feedstock into Ethanol. There are a few videos and sites who say that by using a few enzymes or chemicals they can break down cellulose like wood chips into simple sugars that can be digested by yeast. I read one site that claimed sulphuric acid was the key and another that said two mystery enzymes where the way to do it. I haven’t been able to find any conclusive evidence and was wondering if anyone knew anything at all about it. I asked a biology professor at my university today if he had any information about the process and he hadn’t heard anything about it. I will be asking around to a few other professors that specialize in biological metabolic pathways and that might lead me down the right road. Please, if you know anything about this, leave some comment action right below.
Green classes are easy on students wallets.
At the end of every semester I have a mountain of paper to throw in the recycling bin. I take five or six classes and the all have hand outs, syllabus, worksheets, etc,. When I first started college in 2002, there was no black board, just email but even that was a good start to cutting back on paper use. When I started USM and heard about blackboard I thought it was going to be great. I had a lot of expectations for blackboard and many of them have been fulfilled, but many have not. I still find myself printing out paper at $0.04/page to hand in assignments because teachers require hard copies so they don’t have to pay to print. It leaves me asking, why do we need to print anything out at all? Why can’t we email assignments, and get an emailed grade back? It would save a ton of money for students over the course of the semester. If there is money to be saved, why even stop at assignments? I say make everything digital. Most teachers do, but its the few that don’t that prevent blackboard from being the one and only stop to find information about your classes.
Chevy Tahoe Hybrid – Thinking From The Center Of The Box
The recent spike in gas prices is not anything to be surprised about. We all knew it was coming. The 1970’s put the writing on the wall. Ask any kinder gardener and they can tell you the difference between a renewable and non-renewable resource. Thats why it kills me to see GM crushing EV1’s when they were years ahead of their time. That event solidifies in my mind the karma ridden demise of the strength of American car companies. They made an accounting profit choice when they should have done what Toyota did, make an economic profit choice. When GM saw the price of gas go up, and California’s tightening emission controls they did two things; 1). They played the green card and started the EV1 project incase the standards were passed, and 2). They lobbied to have the standards removed. When the standards were removed, they no longer justified the EV1 Project and ended it. Toyota on the other hand saw the writing on the wall and continued their investment in hybrid technology. Their decision to do so is the reason why the Prius is one of the best selling cars on the market. Its why Toyota is in the midst of windfall profits making money hand over fist while GM and Ford are cutting production, laying off employees, and looking for government help. I say, let them fail. They didn’t make a good decision for the American public, they made a decision for themselves so why should the American public bail them out now that they are dealing with the consequences of their greed? GM, Ford, and Chevy hardly have half a brain between the three of them. case in point, the all new Chevy Tahoe Hybrid.
I’m sitting in a movie theater and up comes this commercial for the new Chevy Tahoe Hybrid. An employee is driving this monstrocity around town explaining its features. There is no one else in the car, so he is by himself in what amounts to a 16 passenger personal bus, driving down a suburban neighborhood. This commercial exactly represents whats wrong with these companies. They are losing the old game of gas guzzling suv’s because Prius is sockin’ it to them, so what do they do, they keep the SUV, but they make it slightly more fuel effecient! I see this and I feel like I’m taking crazy pills! Chevy is polishing the brass on the Titanic by all measures but they don’t get it so if by the grace of god a Chevy, Ford, or GM employee is reading this, let me spell it out:
Dear American Car Companies,
You can not make an SUV economically fuel efficient. Americans now know that they can’t afford to drive around in a 8 passenger, tank sized, gas guzzling SUV by themselves anymore. Driving a family around is one thing, but the average American can’t afford to drive themselves in a Tahoe, hybrid or not. Go down town, Gas is $4 a gallon and its going to go higher. STOP making SUV’s. START making electric/Flex-Fuel hybrids (100% gas, 100% ethanol, or any mix of the two) CARS (Key word, CARS) before you go bankrupt and ruin America!
E85
For the last few days I have been reading up on all things ethanol. If you’ve read anything else I’ve written below you might be surprised to hear me talking about ethanol after raving on and on about the effeciancy of electric motors. One of my problems (because there are so many) is that I am an idealist. In an ideal world we could make the shift from gas to electric motors overnight. After reading up on E85 however, I realize that its the perfect stepping stone between gasoline and electricity because E85 is less expensive, it’s cleaner than gas, it (ahem) requires no additional modification or costly equipment, and its available today!
Right now there is about a twenty percent difference between the price of gas and E85 if you can find it. Unfortunately I live in the North East and Maine has no E85 equipped stations and Massachusetts has only one in Boston. Once E85 is more readily available, the invisible hand will guide it to popularity because its significantly less expensive. If gas prices continue to rise, the savings will only increase. This model works well in Brazil where gasoline cars can’t be sold because Ethanol is about 40% less expensive than gas at the pump. I heard some where (maybe NPR) that Americans always make the right choice after all wrong choices have been exhausted, this is a case in point. The best way to get people to buy alternative fuels that help the environment, is to make them less expensive. Actually, its the only way.
E85 is also cleaner than gasoline by up to 93%! That means its great for your engine. There is a video on youtube.com (just search for E85 Chevy Tahoe, or E85 in a non-flex fuel car) where they tear down an engine that was allegedly run on E85 for 100,000 miles without any modification. The engine shows significantly less wear because it wasn’t subjected to the particulate matter from gasoline that acts like sandpaper in an engine. Some estimate that engines running on 100% ethanol might last up to three times longer than the same engine run on gasoline. So if you own a Subaru or Nissan, you might never have to buy another one again!
As I said, running E85 requires no additional equipment or modification! I’ve read around an many are warning not to use E85 in a non-flex fuel car. Many say its harmless or even better for your car. The automobile was originally designed to run on ethanol, not gasoline. Its a far superior fuel. There are kits on the internet for the conversion for a few hundred dollars that will tweak your engine for better performance and 100% ethanol use but 100% ethanol isn’t available yet at the pump and from what I’ve been reading its very hard to make on your own (though I’m going to try!). Thats why I’m going to put my car on the line as a test subject. Sometime in the near future I will be making a special trip to Boston to buy 10 gallons of E85 for my 1994 Saturn. I will let you know how it goes but I’m not expecting any trouble. I am interested in seeing how much cooler the engine runs because I’ve heard that cooler running temperatures is one of the main advantages of burning ethanol.
The final reason why I believe that E85 is a great stepping stone is its availability. Don’t get me wrong, I love electric cars, motors, and Teslas, but they are still out of reach. I can’t afford to convert my car to electric, and even if I could, it would cripple my car. The current battery technology limits the range unless you want to spend a pretty penny for lithium ion batteries. Electric cars are the future, gasoline cars are the past, but ethanol is making a great case for the future.
ElectriFlex – Plug-in Electric / Flex-Fuel Hybrid Car
In my last post I stumbled upon a great idea. Every once in a while I have one and before I can tell anyone to get credit for it, I find out its already been created by some one else. Then I tell my friends “Oh I thought of that last year” and I always get a “Yeah right you’re on drugs! You didn’t think of that!” Case in point, today I stumbled upon an article on www.makezine.com/blog about a new fitness gym concept, that I told a friend about two months ago. A gym that uses its members to generate electricity for the grid. My vision included typing in the parking space number of your electric car parked and plugged out front so you could work out to charge your own electric car. Well this time I’m going to tell everyone about my prediction for Electric / Flex-Fuel Hybrid cars, which I am predicting they will call ElectriFlex Hybrids (EFH’s). This car is the next logical step in fuel efficiency and independence, its a plug in electric for local traveling, and a flex fuel 100% ethanol capable car for long trips. Lastly, if for whatever reason you can’t charge your car, and can’t find Ethanol, you can fill up with dirty foreign gasoline as a last resort.
