Green Options

It’s getting to be almost a cliché here in San Francisco with large music festivals that have either a green backbone or a heck of lot of social justice behind it. Both Outside Lands and Hardly Strictly Bluegrass sit only slightly in the rear view mirror but this weekend we hit the Treasure Island Music Festival to check out the music, happenings and the overall Green flavor.

Considering that several thousand people crammed into the festival space on Treasure Island we think that overall they handled the transportation issue in a pretty Green way. We made our way to the festival via zero-emission Bauer buses that picked most of the masses up at AT&T Park. The only real griping we heard came from East Bay attendees who said that they had to drive or take BART to SF instead of having shuttle buses come to the East Bay as well.

Upon entering the festival we couldn’t help but noticing the Ferris wheel but then after that we spied a pair of decent size solar panels that sat near the entrance. Unfortunately, we couldn’t determine or find anyone who knew what the solar power generated. We’re sure it the energy went toward something beneficial.

Wal-Mart Testing Diesel-Hybrid Commercial Fleet, Powered By Reclaimed Grease Fuel From Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club Stores.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc announced plans to test two different hybrid Class-8 trucks and three different types of alternative fuels in an effort to double their fleet’s fuel-efficiency.

Yesterday the U.S. Senate voted to renew a one year extension for renewable energy tax credits worth $18 billion dollars. Absent from the package was a tax credit aimed at helping food giant Tyson and oil giant ConocoPhillips turn a profit by converting fats leftover from Tyson’s processing of beef to the so-called “renewable diesel” that ConocoPhillips blends with regular diesel (for a look at what renewable diesel is, check out Jason Burroughs comment below).

The legislation enacts a $1 per gallon credit for biodiesel production, but the “renewable diesel” made from waste fat, or tallow, would only be eligible for a 50 cent per gallon credit. According to Tyson and ConocoPhillips, without the $1 per gallon credit for making “renewable diesel” from tallow, their proposed project is a no go.

Texas biodiesel producer GreenHunter Energy says that hurricane damage to its gulf coast refinery — currently the largest in the nation — will take it out of production for 6 to 8 weeks.

The GreenHunter facility is capable of producing 100 million gallons of biodiesel per year (Mgy) using a combination of animal fats and vegetable oils. Prior to Hurricane Ike, they had been ramping up production and last Friday announced that they had achieved a 65 Mgy output. It’s unclear how the hurricane damage will affect their time frame for reaching full capacity.

The Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance (SBA) is a non-profit organization created to promote cradle-to-grave biodiesel practices for verifying that all points in the production and distribution chain are sustainable.

And now they want your input on what those sustainable practices and standards should be — they’ve released the first draft of their “Principles and Baseline Practices for Sustainability” (PDF) to the public under a 45-day comment and review period.

So, if you’ve ever questioned the wisdom of growing our own fuel, or you’ve wondered how biofuels can be considered sustainable at all given other seemingly cleaner options like solar, wind and geothermal, now’s your time to speak up.

Rotting, leftover fryer grease has turned into gold in the race to our energy future — and thieves have taken notice.

It’s early in the pre-dawn dark hours of the morning. A group of Northern California pseudohippies just finished a game of Zonk — or rather, the game just stopped because somebody quoted a line from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and everybody forgot what they were doing.

Yet, by a stroke of luck, the conversation about Harold and Kumar reminds the group of their real reason for staying up so late. They pack into a truck and head down to the local fast food joint looking to load up — but it’s not the food they’re loading up on, it’s the nasty, half-rotted, leftover fryer grease.

According to an article in the Jakarta Post, an official from the Indonesian government has spilled the beans on Samsung’s plans to invest up to $1.63 billion dollars in what’s sure to be a controversial acquisition of land for growing oil palms and construction of a biodiesel plant in Indonesia.

The current rate at which biofuels are falling out of favor is largely founded on biased ideologies, which have been shaped by widespread political and corporate agenda-pushing from all sides of the fence.

But first, a digression.

Part 1: When an egg was just an egg

I remember a time when an egg was just an egg. Nobody argued about that. It was a blissful time. Yet, for all its strengths, it was a fragile time held together by unsupported conclusions and limited knowledge.

Lack of warranty support for biodiesel has been a major stumbling block for new diesel owners who want to start using the fuel. But three long-awaited ASTM specifications could help change that.

Automakers and engine manufacturers have been requesting a finished blend specification for B20 biodiesel blends for several years, with some citing the need for that spec as the single greatest hurdle preventing their full-scale acceptance of B20 use in their diesel vehicles.

On June 19th, after more than five years of research and discussion, the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) finally approved the following specifications for biodiesel fuel:

• Changes to the existing B100 biodiesel blend stock specification (ASTM D6751)
• Finished specifications to include up to 5% biodiesel (B5) in the conventional petrodiesel specification (ASTM D975)
• A new specification for blends of between 6 percent biodiesel (B6) to 20 percent biodiesel (B20) for on and off road diesel.

If that’s gibberish to you, here’s the take home message: the new specification for B6-B20 biodiesel blends could prompt more automakers to fully support B20 in their new cars and trucks.

It’s hard to believe that one of America’s greenest cities lacks a true biodiesel station. Yes, San Francisco has an Olympic station on Third Street however is only supplies commercially licensed diesel vehicles with “B20” which even in the controversial biodiesel world isn’t that green. If the building and fire departments sign off, then Dogpatch Biofuels will open in the near future. Yes, we can wait to smell all the great restaurant cooking oil waste from SF’s top level eateries filled into the hungry car engines.

Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with biodiesel, but how much do we really know?

While biodiesel is easily the most popular alternative fuel available, it’s commonly misunderstood or misrepresented by inaccurate information. Since the most frequent question I get is, “So what exactly is biodiesel, anyway?“, I decided to write a tome covering all the basics—a one stop shop for all your biodiesel- related questions.

It’s been exactly one year since I published the first Biodiesel Mythbuster on GreenOptions.com, and its popularity made a sequel inevitable. By way of a short introduction, here’s what I wrote last year: