Fun fact: Timber Talk radio covers a population of 2,400,000 in three states.

We spoke for about 30 minutes on a range of topics, including the new renewable fuel standard, cellulosic ethanol and GM’s announcement, algae biodiesel, vegetable oil as a fuel, and so on.

Listen to the show here.

Photo Credit

But recycled grease represents a source of cheap energy to some, one that can be converted to biodiesel or used directly as a substitute for diesel fuel. Having collected waste oil for both of these ends, I can tell you I’ve always had a nagging suspicion that one day the ‘free’ ride would come to a screeching halt. It just wasn’t clear how soon it would end.

Some parts of the country are now facing fierce competition over this generally unknown but ubiquitous local resource. The Associated Press has dubbed it the “Grease Wars”:

Recycled cooking oil has traditionally been sold for use in cattle feed and cosmetics. But the segment going to biofuels has grown in recent years to account for about 20 percent of the used oil market, said Tyson Keever, co-founder of Sequential Pacific Biofuels, the state’s largest manufacturer of biodiesel.

Portland’s oil peddlers are now fighting over grease worth as much as $1.20 a gallon. “You have processors now in the metro area who are looking at using that grease for biodiesel primarily,” said Mike McCallum, president and CEO of the Oregon Restaurant Association. “There are restaurants who are being solicited for the use of the grease and are getting some money for it.” The result in the long run may be more expensive biodiesel at the pump.

Read more of this story »

Yep, that’s right - a 1,000 ft. mushroom cloud, and no, that doesn’t mean above-ground nuclear testing has resumed in the Nevada desert. It just means that the artist who built Crude Awakenings - a 100 ft. tall oil derrick - wanted to blow it up at the end of the festival (to "dramatize the worshipful relationship and dependence modern man has toward oil"), and to do so he used 900 gallons of jet fuel (apparently off-spec fuel given to him by NASA) and 2,000 gallons of liquid propane, not to mention the timber and steel used in the structure. You can see it on YouTube here.

So how does such a staggering display of firepower — the largest explosion in the events history — contribute to an event thematically-focused on reneewable energy and green tech? Well, lets just say it’s "green in theme"…

"If you were really green, you would have walked."
- Posted sign at the entrance to Burning Man

Burning Man was founded on a novel concept: take a population the size of a small town, institute a gift economy (no vending or sales allowed) but maintain basic legal structure (state and federal laws still apply, mostly), and then demolish all regularly-maintained social conventions. Want to dress up like a samurai? Great. Don’t feel like wearing any clothes at all? No problem. Don’t want to sleep ever again? That’s a given. It’s like the Matrix meets Never-Never-Land.

So just how Green was this Man, anyway?

Now don’t get me wrong — I dig the theme. In fact, it’s part of the reason I went this year, and I drove to the festival without burning a drop of petroleum. But a remotely-located, 46,000-person party based on the primal need for really loud electronic music and torching large wooden effigies doesn’t strike me as particularly low-impact.

Consider the amount of road and air travel required by those attending the event (the kids next to me spent $300 in fuel to get there, and only stayed 2 nights). People attend from every corner of the globe, which involves considerable international travel, and thousands of road trips that otherwise may not have happened. Add to this the absolutely massive scale of pyrotechnic displays, and the total CO2 bill for the 8-days of Burning Man comes out to about 27,000 tons of CO2 each year (2006 data).

Seems like a lot, except when compared to the 23,013,698 metric tons of CO2 the US emits anyway in those same 8 days. (2005 data - EIA). In case you were wondering, Burning Man represents an increase of 1/10th of a percent over business as usual. And since many travelers are taking regularly scheduled work vacations to attend the event, it would be hard to claim this is a unique increase.

Even so, the festival has made some effort to reduce its impact. In 2005, the "Cooling Man" project was founded to offer carbon offsets for festival-goers. The project’s web site estimates that if 70% of burners (32,200 people) offset 1 ton of carbon dioxide emissions, Black Rock City would become the first carbon negative city in the world. Of course, that depends on how you feel about carbon offsets, and who actually participates. Since offsetting 1 ton only costs $10, it’s unclear why they don’t just tack this onto the ticket price (tickets cost around $250 anyway). So far this year, the Cooling Man project has offset 627 tons of CO2.

As you may have heard, the big deal this year was the Green Pavilion underneath the man, with 30,000 square feet of decidedly science-fair-like green-tech exhibits, including solar and wind power, alternative fuels (a Greasecar SVO conversion), and one electric car plastered white with playa dust. At least 50% of the power for the displays came from a 30 kW solar array that was given to Gerlach, NV, after the event (which will generate $3 million of electricity over the next 20 years, at no cost to Gerlach/Lovelock residents). Two other solar projects were also designed and sponsored by Burning Man, including a 120 kW solar array in Gerlach, Nevada and a 60 kW solar array in Lovelock, Nevada. Burning Man also swapped out all of Gerlach’s (population 500) old light-bulb’s and replaced them with compact fluorescents.

These would be considerable investments for a group of partiers that didn’t really care about their impact, but I think it’s fair to say they do, and next week I’ll talk about more of the smaller-scale environmentally-minded steps "Burners" were taking, including powering their dance music with biodiesel. I’ll also hit on a few of the other cool exhibits, like the CO2-to-algae display, and have some general conclusions about this year’s fest.

To be continued…

"The Green Man" from WorldChanging

"Crude Awakening Arises at Burning Man" from Wired

Prompted by high gas prices, global warming, and good old curiosity, more and more proud diesel owners are converting their vehicles to run on 100% vegetable oil. While the concept isn’t new, the number of dedicated users is steadily increasing, and this means more potential conflict with regulators who have no idea what to do with the vegetable oil crowd. Since vegetable oil is not recognized by the EPA as an official alternative fuel, most states have not decided how to handle the issue.

Few states. . .are prepared to regulate the new fuels, says the National VegOil Board, which promotes vegetable oil fuel.

“State offices do not have the forms to appropriately and fairly deal with VegOil, nor the staff to enforce the nonexistent forms,” said director Cynthia Shelton. “So either they tell people inquiring about compliance to get lost, or they make them jump a bunch of arbitrary hoops.”

It really comes down whether revenue collectors see using a more-or-less free fuel, vegetable oil, as blatant avoidance of paying the road tax. Unfortunately, the public typically receives mixed messages from different departments within the same state. The Department of Energy in Oregon actually offers tax credits for alternative fuel vehicles and fueling stations of 25% of the conversion or construction cost (up to $750/year). That’s what the law says, but call up the office or the Department of Revenue and you may here a different story.

Under the present circumstances it seems reasonable to promote grassroots activity focused on alternative transportation, so why doesn’t Uncle Sam just leave SVO’ers alone? Obviously, the road tax is an important source of revenue ($1.2 billion/year in NC), but it no one would argue that SVO, at least today, significantly affects that.

Is there any reason why these backyarder-greaseballs should get a free ride?

Well, ingenuity perhaps? Or doing there part to reduce our nation’s reliance on foreign oil? At a time when groundbreaking biofuel legislation passes daily, and the Department of Energy is practically throwing money at anything combining the words “cellulosic” and “ethanol”, this seems a little incongruous.

State Sen. Stan Bingham, R-Denton, is known around Raleigh for his diesel Volkswagen fueled by used soybean oil. The car sports a “Goodbye, OPEC” sign. “If somebody was going to go to this much trouble to drive around in a car that uses soybean oil, they ought to be exempt” from state taxes, he said.

If you want to find out where your state stands on the issue, call your state Department of Energy and see what they have to say about it. You might also consider offering to pay road taxes for the road miles you use each year, but don’t expect this to be a straightforward process. Also keep in mind that these taxes apply to homebrew biodiesel, though proper regulation should already be in place.

If you get busted by the man for attempting sustainable transportation, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Interested in SVO or want to learn how a vehicle can actually be converted? - stay tuned for more posts on the subject. In the mean time, (and not that I’m trying to give anyone away to the Feds) check out Megan’s recent post on the subject.

Driver ticketed for using biofuel: Vegetable oil sticks him with $1,000 fine. Bruce Henderson, The Charlotte Observer

National VegOil Board