Tag: biofuel

Algae Fuel Aspirations

  • A net drags floating algae toward the boat (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)

Algae is attracting a lot of
attention and investment as an alternative
energy source. It grows quickly, contains
a lot of oil, and doesn’t take up valuable
farmland. Ann Dornfeld profiles one company
that’s trying to turn algae into fuel:

Transcript

Algae is attracting a lot of
attention and investment as an alternative
energy source. It grows quickly, contains
a lot of oil, and doesn’t take up valuable
farmland. Ann Dornfeld profiles one company
that’s trying to turn algae into fuel:

I’m standing on a pontoon boat floating just a few feet off the shore of a saltwater bay.
Two men are standing in the waist-deep water around the boat. They’re guiding a layer of
floating algae into a funnel that’s sucking the algae into a burlap bag.

(sucking sound)

It’s an algae harvest – and James Stevens is directing the process. He says they
have to be careful not to suck up young salmon or other animals along with the
algae.

“This junction can be turned on, and it allows me to feed water into a box where
then I can sort and make sure there’s no by-catch actually coming through the
system.”

Stevens is Vice President and Chief Scientist of Blue Marble Energy. It’s
a Seattle start-up trying to turn algae into fuel. Most algae-to-energy researchers
are growing algae in giant tanks. Blue Marble has a different plan: gather algae
that’s already growing in noxious blooms along coastlines.

(sound of waves)

Here in Dumas Bay, not far from Seattle, huge blooms of algae often rot in the
water. That process uses up oxygen and kills marine life. And when the dead algae
washes up on the beach, it creates a smell the neighbors hate.

Blue Marble President Kelly Ogilvie says these algae blooms are common
around Puget Sound – but that’s nothing compared to more polluted waterways
elsewhere in the world.

“And the most recent, I think, salient example was Qingdao, China. And the
bloom that occurred there was, I think, like 800 square miles and they pulled a
million tons out of the water and that is prologue to what is going to be happening
on coastlines across the planet.”

Warmer water can help algae grow, and some scientists think global warming is
contributing to an increase in gigantic blooms. Nutrients from sewage dumping
and fertilizer runoff from farm fields and lawns also help algae flourish.

“If you think about what is actually happening in our oceans, the algae bloom
crisis has just begun. And if we can find a way to turn that new crisis into a
solution to something else, by goodness we’re going to try and make a go at it.”

Most companies doing algae-to-energy research focus on creating biofuels for cars
or jets. Instead of liquid fuel, Blue Marble wants to convert algae into natural gas
and biochemicals.

Along with private investment, Blue Marble has a contract with the Washington
Department of Ecology to collect algae at two bays in Puget Sound.

The department’s Alice Kelly is watching today’s harvest from the beach. She says
her agency hopes this gets rid of the rotten egg smell neighbors have been
complaining about without hurting the ecosystem, the sealife near the shore.

“It’s very important to protect that habitat. So we’re walking a very fine line here
between trying to deal with the excess odor problem and protect the near shore.”

Blue Marble’s approach provides that protection, she says, because its operation is
based just offshore. They aren’t dragging equipment across the beach. And today,
it looks like the only by-catch has been other species of algae.

But some conservationists have big concerns about harvesting wild algae for fuel.

One of them is Kevin Britton-Simmons, a researcher at
the University of Washington. He says a lot of unnatural algae blooms could be
prevented by keeping fertilizer and other pollutants out of the water.

“I feel this is essentially exploiting the problem instead
of fixing it. I’m concerned if we allow a business to develop that’s dependant on
this problem, what’s gonna happen when we fix the problem? Will there then be
pressure for this business to harvest natural populations of algae?”

Natural blooms are a valuable part of the food web, and he says removing them
could rob marine life of a major food source. He says it’s also hard to distinguish
between natural algae blooms and those caused by pollution.

(sound of waves)

Back on Dumas Bay, Kelly Ogilvie says his company has netted nearly 10,000 pounds of algae from the two harvests it’s completed. The next step is to
use bacteria to break down the algae into natural gas and various chemicals.

If all goes as planned, Ogilvie says Blue Marble’s first batch of natural gas will be
ready any day now.

For The Environment Report, I’m Ann Dornfeld.

Related Links

The Candidates on Renewable Energy

  • Barack Obama and John McCain give their views on renewable energy (Photo courtesy of the Commission on Presidential Debates)

Both major party candidates for
president say the nation’s economy and
national security are closely tied with
its energy policy. But they each have
a different plan to build the market for
alternatives to foreign oil and other
fossil fuels. In the next part of our
series about shifting the nation’s energy
policy, Julie Grant takes a look at the
candidates’ views on renewable power, like
wind and solar:

Thanks to the Public Radio Exchange for providing the audio for this piece.

Transcript

Both major party candidates for
president say the nation’s economy and
national security are closely tied with
its energy policy. But they each have
a different plan to build the market for
alternatives to foreign oil and other
fossil fuels. In the next part of our
series about shifting the nation’s energy
policy, Julie Grant takes a look at the
candidates’ views on renewable power, like
wind and solar:

John McCain and Barack Obama both talk a lot about new
sources of energy on the campaign trail. They see
alternative energy as a way to reduce our dependence on
foreign oil, to stem climate change, and even to boost the
economy.

McCain: “It’s wind, tide, solar, nuclear, offshore drilling.”

Obama: “That’s why I’ve focused on putting resources into
solar, wind, biodiesel, geothermal.”

Every president since Richard Nixon has promised to reduce
America’s dependence on foreign oil – but our imports have
only increased since the 1970s.

So what are each of this season’s contenders proposing?

Obama has been talking about huge investments in clean
technologies and energy efficiency.

“My energy plan will invest 150-billion dollars over the next
ten years to establish a green energy sector that will create
up to five million jobs over the next two decades. Five
million jobs.” (applause)

Obama wants to retrain steel and auto industry workers for
jobs building wind turbines and solar panels.

Wind energy is already contributing energy to the nation’s
electricity supply. Solar isn’t quite there yet. It needs more
research.

Edward McBride is energy and environment correspondent
for The Economist magazine. He says Obama plans direct
government investments in wind, solar, hybrid electric cars,
and making homes and businesses more energy efficient.

“He imagines a situation where the government is much
more heavily involved, not just in providing incentives but
actually in spending money. And therefore presumably the
government is in a position to pick and choose more which
technologies move forward.”

Unlike Obama, Senator McCain doesn’t plan direct
government investment in clean technologies. Instead,
McBride says the McCain is proposing tax credits for those
who do invest in them.

“He wants more broad-based incentives. Rather than
different incentives for solar and wind and so on. He wants
one unifying tax incentive.”

But McCain plans some direct government subsidies – for
nuclear and clean coal.

And although McCain talks about building a green economy
on the campaign trail, he doesn’t always seem convinced
that clean energy will provide the power America needs.

Here’s McCain speaking in New Hampshire last December.

“Most every expert that I know says that if you maximize that
in every possible way the contribution that that would make
given the present state of technology, is very small. It’s not
a large contribution. Even if we gave it the absolute
maximum, wind, solar and tide, etc. The truly clean
technologies don’t work.”

McCain is counting on the investment markets to decide
winners and losers in the renewable energy business.

But the markets don’t usually look long term, at things like
climate change. So both presidential candidates are
planning to put a price on burning fossil fuels, such as oil
and coal, that add to the problems of climate change.

That alone could provide another incentive for clean
competitors.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

E-85: The Loneliest Pump

  • This E85 pump is one of two publicly available in the city of Chicago - a city of nearly three million people and dozens of dealerships that sell E-85 compatible cars. The federal government provided incentives to manufacture E85- compatible vehicles, but the fuel infrastructure hasn't kept up. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

If you’ve kicked the tires around
a new car lot recently, your dealer may
have told you about “flex fuel” cars. These
Flex Fuel Vehicles run on gas or they can
burn “E85” – a mix of ethanol and gasoline.
Congress promoted Flex Fuel Vehicles to cut
oil imports, but Shawn Allee reports
on why it really hasn’t helped:

Transcript

If you’ve kicked the tires around
a new car lot recently, your dealer may
have told you about “flex fuel” cars. These
Flex Fuel Vehicles run on gas or they can
burn “E85” – a mix of ethanol and gasoline.
Congress promoted Flex Fuel Vehicles to cut
oil imports, but Shawn Allee reports
on why it really hasn’t helped:

I’m in my car across the street from a gas station. It’s raining right now. Keeping my
distance.

I’ve been watching a pump that dispenses that E85 blend – it’s the stuff with 85% ethanol.

Anyway, this is a very lonely gas pump. I’ve been here for something like an hour and
half and no one’s filled up on E85.

So, I’m gonna head in and talk to a manager to see whether this is normal.

(sound of bell)

Allee: “What’s your name sir?”

McLemen: “Greg McLemen.”

Allee: “How often do you see people fill up on E85?”

McLemen: “It depends on the location. Mostly people just don’t know what it is. They
see a little pump over there that says E85. A lot of vehicles take it, and they don’t even
know it.”

McLemen pulls out a flier that shows which vehicles can use E85.

He says lots of these models pull in, but often pass up his E85 pump.

(sound of crinkling)

McLemen: “You can see most of them are General Motors.”

Allee: “A lot of General Motors – Tahoe, Avalanche, Uplanders.”

McLemen: “We always recommend they go online or check the owner’s manual.”

But there’s something most Flex-Fuel owners manuals don’t tell you.

Nationwide, only about 1% of stations have an E85 pump.

E85 is supposed to cut gasoline use.

So it begs the questions: If there’s not much E85 around, why can so many Flex Fuel cars
use it?

“Currently, auto companies receive a fuel economy credit for producing a flex-fuel
vehicle.”

Environmentalist Roland Hwang tracks car policy for the Natural Resources Defense
Council.

He says the Flex Fuel incentives infuriate him – because they’ve made us waste gasoline,
not save it.

“Just very roughly speaking, like a twenty per mile gallon car might be treated like a
forty mile per gallon, almost like a hybrid-level of efficiency, under these fuel economy
credits. Thereby allowing the auto companies actually to build a less-efficient vehicle
fleet than they would have had to build.”

You don’t have to take Hwang’s word for it – energy analysts in the government agree the
incentives have wasted gasoline.

But some of these analysts say there is a bright side to the Flex Fuel vehicle incentives.

One is Paul Leiby of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

Leiby: “The important side of effect Flexible Fuel incentives is that we actually can begin
to achieve energy security with the enhanced capability to use alternative fuels even if
we’re not yet using them.”

Allee: “You mean the flex fuel vehicle program wastes some gas, but having flex fuel
vehicles around is like an insurance policy, for an oil shock or something?”

Leiby: “That’s exactly right. If we have to do something very fast, within one to three
years, we already have some vehicles on the road, that can quickly switch to ethanol.”

Leiby says Congress really believed this “insurance policy” idea, so it let Flex Fuel
vehicle incentives for automakers go on for more than a decade – even while we were
just spinning our wheels when it came to actually saving gas.

But now, the game could be changing.

Congress is phasing out Flex Fuel credits for the car makers.

And, there’s talk about making all cars flex fuel.

It’s a move Detroit doesn’t want to make. Because then they’ll have to actually have to
meet the government’s requirements of a more fuel efficient fleet.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Flex-Fuel Cars Often Burn Gas

  • The seven million or so Flex Fuel Vehicles are just a small portion of the 200-million or so vehicles in the American fleet, but there could many, more in the future. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

For most drivers, filling up at the
pump’s a pretty easy operation – you drive
up, you fill up, and you drive out. But people
who have Flex Fuel Vehicles have another choice.
They can fill up on gas or E-85, that 85 percent
ethanol blend – if they find the right station.
Shawn Allee reports a lot more of us
could have to make that same choice in the future:

Transcript

For most drivers, filling up at the
pump’s a pretty easy operation – you drive
up, you fill up, and you drive out. But people
who have Flex Fuel Vehicles have another choice.
They can fill up on gas or E-85, that 85 percent
ethanol blend – if they find the right station.
Shawn Allee reports a lot more of us
could have to make that same choice in the future:

I’m at a car lot in my home town. I’m not actually in the car market, but I am
curious what these E85 compatible Flex Fuel vehicles look like. I don’t own one
myself.

Anyway, I’m here with Edgar Moreno. He sells cars on this lot. He’s gonna show
me one of these vehicles here.

Allee: “Edgar, what can you show me?”

Moreno: “The Chevy Impala.”

Allee: “I actually don’t see anything that would tell me it’s a Flex-fuel vehicle.”

Moreno: “Usually it says on the gas cap whether you can use E85 or not.”

(sound of twist)

Allee: “It’s bright yellow. It says E85. In fact it says E85-slash-gasoline. What does
that mean?”

Moreno: “You can fill it with either, or.”

Allee: “How many stations are there available where I could fill this Impala up with
E85?”

Moreno: “I think there’s one in the area, but you have to drive quite a bit to get
there.”

Allee: “So, it’s one of those situations where, if I take this Impala off the lot, I could
still use it at a regular gas station, but I might have to search around for an E85
station?”

Moreno: “Yes, you do. Yep.”

Congress and both presidential candidates are considering making every car a Flex
Fuel Vehicle.

Detroit has spent a lot of money promoting E85 vehicles, and you might think they’d
be in favor of this.

Well, I called Ford Motor Company about this and found out that’s not the case.

“You could mandate every vehicle on the road to be a flex fuel vehicle. It would be a
great cost to our industry.”

Curt Magleby is Ford’s point-man on ethanol regulations.

He says if Congress gets its way there’d be more Flex Fuel Vehicles, but not necessarily
more E85 pumps.

“So you can mandate the vehicle side, but unless there’s a real focus on distribution,
it’s wasted money – we’d be putting dollars on the hoods of our vehicles for no
reason.”

So, Ford and the other car makers could make less profit on Flex Fuel Vehicles if there’s
a mandate.

At one time, they got government incentives to build Flex Fuel Vehicles, but those will
phase out.

So there’d be no benefit for the automakers.

And there’s another twist in the E-85 story.

The fuel industry is pushing to distribute ethanol in a way that might not require flex fuel
cars at all.

This is a little technical, but most gas already has 10% ethanol in it.

The fuel industry wants to sell 20% or even 30% ethanol blends because it saves oil
companies money. The government subsidized ethanol is cheaper than refining oil for
gasoline.

Ford and other car-makers are fighting this.

Magleby says burning E-20 or E-30 blends would be a disaster for existing cars.

“Ethanol is corrosive and it burns hotter, so you have to have a different fuel tank.
You have to have stainless steel fuel lines. You have to have hardened valves in your
engine.”

Car companies say burning 20% or 30% ethanol blends could hurt existing cars.

Scientists are checking whether that’s the case.

In the meantime, Congress is deciding exactly how it will promote ethanol.

It could mandate all cars be E85 Flex Fuel vehicles or it could promote lower-level
ethanol blends in gasoline.

Either way, over the next few years, we’re going to see big changes in our cars or our gas
pumps.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Cellulosic Ethanol Breaks Ground

Getting fuel from plants like corn
and sugar cane is not that efficient. That’s
why researchers are working on so-called
cellulosic biofuels. The process turns things
like corn stalks, wood chips, and grasses into
fuel. As Mark Brush reports, some new
cellulosic refineries are breaking ground:

Transcript

Getting fuel from plants like corn
and sugar cane is not that efficient. That’s
why researchers are working on so-called
cellulosic biofuels. The process turns things
like corn stalks, wood chips, and grasses into
fuel. As Mark Brush reports, some new
cellulosic refineries are breaking ground:

The new refineries are being built with money from the federal government. The hope is
to perfect a fuel source that a) doesn’t come from food, and b) is much more efficient
than corn-based ethanol.

The problem is it’s hard to get at the sugars inside the
plants. But the payback could be big. For every one unit of energy going in,
cellulosic ethanol could spit out about five to ten units of energy.

Brian Davidson is with the BioEnergy Science Center. He says industry officials are
hopeful, but he thinks these new refineries are just a first step.

“They believe that those technologies will be more widely applicable, but I actually
believe that we’re going to need further technology improvements to go from these first
few handful of plants, handful of bio-refineries, to make them widespread.”

Davidson says scientists still have not perfected ways to break down the plants in a
cost-effective way.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Growing Grass for Ethanol

  • Eric Rund raises corn and soy on his Illinois farm but is experimenting with 'Miscanthus x giganteus', a hybrid grass that could become a major feedstock for cellulosic ethanol - if the market ever matures. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

The US is in the middle of an
ethanol revolution, or at least it’s
supposed to be. Scientists want to
develop ethanol that doesn’t use corn
– so food prices won’t go up. They’ve
found a tall grass called miscanthus that
can produce loads of ethanol – but they
haven’t perfected it yet. Shawn Allee reports some are trying to grow
miscanthus before the ethanol revolution
arrives:

Transcript

The US is in the middle of an
ethanol revolution, or at least it’s
supposed to be. Scientists want to
develop ethanol that doesn’t use corn
– so food prices won’t go up. They’ve
found a tall grass called miscanthus that
can produce loads of ethanol – but they
haven’t perfected it yet. Shawn Allee reports some are trying to grow
miscanthus before the ethanol revolution
arrives:

You won’t find much miscanthus near Decatur, Illinois.

Nope. Corn is crop number one.

But all this corn-growing has a downside.

Agronomist Stephen John offers to show it to me.

Shawn Allee: “Where are we?”

Stephan John: “Well, we’re near the upper end of Lake Decatur, looking across at
the city’s dredge. Right now that dredge that is sucking up sediment from the lake
bottom.”

John says corn can leave ground bare, and rain washes dirt and fertilizer pollution into
this lake.

“Some of that nitrogen gets into streams and ditches into Lake Decatur, which had
to develop a facility to protect drinking water.”

John wants farmers to protect soil from erosion and use less fertilizer.

One option is to grow grasses that hold soil and use less nitrogen. One candidate is that
miscanthus grass the ethanol industry’s interested in.

Problem is, no one buys miscanthus yet.

“So, the trick is how do you make it economically viable to get those grasses onto the
land, how do you make that attractive?”

John says people are working on that problem.

Farmer Eric Rund stands near a patch of miscanthus grass. He’s a pretty tall guy, but the
grass is even taller.

Shawn Allee: “I’m putting my hand through here.”

Eric Rund: “It’s like a jungle in there, it’s like bamboo growth or something.”

Rund says corn farmers get kinda freaked out by miscanthus. It doesn’t grow from seed,
and unlike corn, it takes years to produce.

He says farmers need to experiment with it.

“And if we do that now, when ethanol production comes along, we will then have a
reliable source of biomass for the ethanol plant.”

Rund says some farmers would grow miscanthus just to protect water and soil. But to
make it mainstream, it’s gotta be profitable.

“That’s the key. No farmer’s going to plant much of it unless there’s a market for it
and there’s no market for it unless there’s a steady supply of it, so the two are going
to have to grow together.”

But what if that takes a while for the ethanol industry to come knocking? Who would use
Rund’s miscanthus?

I meet a guy who’s working on a solution.

Gary Letterly: “What would you like to do, where would you like to start?”

Shawn Allee: “I want to see your furnace.”

I’m with Gary Letterly. He works with the University of Illinois.

He says in corn country, some people heat their homes with corn pellets.
That gave him an idea on how to heat his office.

“And what you see here, it was a corn furnace, and we thought it would be just
great if we could use that furnace and burn grass pellets.

Right next to the modified furnace, there’s a plastic hopper full of miscanthus pellets.

They look like rabbit or hamster food, and they smell like grass.

“Look at high energy costs. This was very competitive with natural gas, and the very
nice thing is being able to keep this value very close to home. The grass was
produced within fifteen miles, the furnaces were produced within five miles, and the
grass was processed into a pellet within 30 miles.”

Letterly says miscanthus offers enough local economic and environmental benefits that
people should look into it now.

It already has potential to be a kind of super-star plant, with or without help from an
ethanol industry may never come.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

High School Student Is Biofuel Whiz-Kid

  • John working on his converter in his workshop (Photo by Sarah Russell)

It’s hard to be optimistic about
paying $4 a gallon at the pump.
But when you’re a teenager working on new
ways to make cheap fuel, it can be pretty
exciting. Julie Grant met one high school
student who is showing off his biodiesel
converter at the county fair:

Transcript

It’s hard to be optimistic about
paying $4 a gallon at the pump.
But when you’re a teenager working on new
ways to make cheap fuel, it can be pretty
exciting. Julie Grant met one high school
student who is showing off his biodiesel
converter at the county fair:

(sounds of the fair)

The Fairgrounds sit in a quiet countryside of rolling green
hills. Small children yell and wave to family members as
they enter the Fair. There’s a steer auction in the barn. And
an antique tractor pull in the grandstand.
It’s like a scene is right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

I’m here to talk with John Russell. He’s walking around in
faded wrangler jeans. A red t-shirt with the sleeves cut off.
And a ballcap advertising a tractor company.


“We’re at the Columbiana County Fair in Lisbon, Ohio. In
the junior fair building.”

John is 17 years old, and amidst 4-H project displays, he has
set up his view of the future. His homemade biodiesel
converter.

It’s a rectangular box – nearly as tall as me.
It’s made of stainless steel. There’s a row of toggle switches
along the side. They light up when John plugs it in. He’s
been working on this for more than a year, and says it
makes vegetable oil into a usable fuel.

“I started out with new oil from Save-A-Lot. I went down to
the local grocery store and picked up a bottle of frying oil.
And just from a recipe I found online, with methanol from an
auto parts store, they sell it as heat. It’s gasoline antifreeze.
Just methanol from an auto parts store, Caustic soda from a
hardware store, and oil from a grocery store, I set out to
make this fuel. And it took me couple of times. I finally got it
right when I actually tried a batch of waste vegetable oil from
the valley drive in. So that was my first successful batch.”

Last year, John was only able to fill a Gatorade bottle with
his fuel. Soon, he expects to convert 240 gallons of
vegetable oil into biodiesel in a day.

He hasn’t quite figured out how much the electricity costs to
run the thing, so he doesn’t know how much it’s costing him
to make the fuel.

Back five years ago, he met a guy who claimed to be making
biodiesel for 46 cents per gallon.

Headlines then were already screaming about skyrocketing
fuel prices. 1.60 per gallon. That’s what sparked John’s
interest in making his own converter.

“46 cents a gallon was pretty cool. And I’m into sustainable
agriculture. It’s recycling and its ecofriendly. The
culmination of all those things, that’s what makes it
interesting for me.”

Now that’s he’s almost 18, most of John’s friends are into
cars. And they’re taking an interest in his biodiesel project.

John Russell: “I’m a senior in high school. So most of my
friends’ reactions are ‘when are you going to give me free
fuel?’ But they all think it’s pretty sweet. It does make fuel a
lot cheaper than you could buy it at the pump.”

Julie Grant: “How much are you selling it for?”

John: “Well, I can’t sell it. Or else I’ll get in trouble with the
big man.”

Julie: “Is your dad the big man?”

John: “no. The IRS.”

He’s got to do some research into state and federal laws.
John wants to use the fuel to run his family’s tractors and
help heat homes in his neighborhood.

He’s not sure if biodiesel is the future of fuel, or even in his
long term future. But John is sure he wants a career in
green industry.

“Anything that’s gonna be tied into this fuel situation that
we’re faced with. Something’s gonna change and
something’s gonna change fast. So I’m very excited for
what’s going to happen.”

For now, John’s trying to put the finishing touches on his
converter so it’s ready for the Ohio state fair later this
summer. He’s the new face of agriculture – making eco-friendly practices into traditional American values.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Deep-Fried Road Trip

  • Devin Smith and Matthew Rolen Stucky use waste oil from deep fryers to power their diesel car (Photo by Katie Carey)

For many people, the summer road
trip includes trips to the beach, and of
course, frequent stops to the gas station.
Two college students are driving across the
country in a car that runs on used vegetable
oil. So when most people pull in to the gas
station this summer, they pull up to the
grease traps. They say it’s a way to raise
awareness about alternative fuels, and save
a bit of money. Katie Carey brings us this
audio postcard:

Transcript

For many people, the summer road
trip includes trips to the beach, and of
course, frequent stops to the gas station.
Two college students are driving across the
country in a car that runs on used vegetable
oil. So when most people pull in to the gas
station this summer, they pull up to the
grease traps. They say it’s a way to raise
awareness about alternative fuels, and save
a bit of money. Katie Carey brings us this
audio postcard:

MATT: My name is Matthew Rolen Stucky. I am taking this ’85 Mercedes Benz Diesel
with a grease car kit, putting old vegetable oil that we find from restaurants along the way
and sticking it in and making it go.

DEVIN: Hi, I’m Devin and we’re getting our fuel for the car from mainly restaurants
from the deep fryer. They dispose of the grease and we just take that and filter it a couple
times.

MATT: Well I pre-filter it – it’s basically a water filter. I have a couple mesh filters that
it goes through and then it goes through a second gas tank where it heats up and runs
through the car and then has one more engine filter that it goes through secondary. You
can drive this around everyday nearly in every situation and it doesn’t slow down your
gas mileage you have the same top speeds, the same acceleration, literally you will not be
able to tell the difference, until you realize you’re not buying the gas, and then you are
happy about it.

DEVIN: We have a journal in the car and we have a tally of how many hummers we’ve
seen on the road trip so far and I think the tally is to sixteen, and we kind of do a little
‘ha-ha’ every time we see one. Just because we know how much they are spending on
gas.

MATT: The reactions range from people saying, “Oh yeah, you are putting it in your car,
great, yeah here take it.” To people going “You do what? What does it do in your car?”
And they don’t believe it and they want to go see it sometimes.

DEVIN: Some people this is the first grease car they have ever seen and they just think it
is awesome that someone is out there doing it. It’s not a solution for everyone, again,
there’s not going to be waste vegetable oil for every single person that wants to drive in
the car around the country, so it definitely is not a solution to the fuel crisis. It’s just us
trying to do our part to raise awareness.

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From the Trash to the Tank

  • Ethanol can be made from material that would end up in a landfill (Source: Patrick-br at Wikimedia Commons)

For the past few years, ethanol’s been
a political darling, but lately it seems the
party’s over. There’s concern the industry’s
using too much corn. That’s contributing to
rising food prices. Well, some companies want
to avoid the controversy. Reporter Shawn Allee explains they want to make ethanol from
stuff we leave behind at the dinner table:

Transcript

For the past few years, ethanol’s been
a political darling, but lately it seems the
party’s over. There’s concern the industry’s
using too much corn. That’s contributing to
rising food prices. Well, some companies want
to avoid the controversy. Reporter Shawn Allee explains they want to make ethanol from
stuff we leave behind at the dinner table:

To give you a sense of how touchy the ethanol issue’s gotten, consider what happened to Presidential
candidate Barack Obama. Last year, he supported mandates to add billions of gallons of ethanol to our
fuel stream. But recently, on ‘Meet the Press’, he was defensive.

“If it turns out, we got to make changes to our ethanol policy to help people get something
to eat, that’s the step we take. But I also believe ethanol has been an important
transitional tool for us to start dealing with our long-term energy crisis.”

Obama and other ethanol backers say we’re not stuck with corn-based ethanol. We can use wood chips
or energy crops like switchgrass.

But this cellulosic ethanol is a ways off.

First, the technology’s expensive. Plus, farmers don’t even grow energy crops now.

So, some companies hope to make ethanol from stuff that doesn’t need farms at all. It would come
from garbage cans, like this one at a coffee shop.

“In that receptacle there’s a lot of paper, and there’s some food bits and there’s some
scraps. So, we’re able to turn that into sugar. And the weak sugar, then we ferment, we distill into alcohol, and we get the ethanol.”

Zig Resiak is with a start-up company called Indiana Ethanol Power. He says garbage could compete
with corn.

“If you have a corn-to-ethanol facility, you’re going to pay for the feedstock. Trash, as a feedstock, we don’t
pay for it. The municipalities actually pay us to take the trash, just like a
landfill will take the trash.”

Resiak’s company isn’t the only one to figure this out. At least three other ethanol firms are asking
cities to hand over their trash, and cash. Besides being cheaper, there might be other advantages to
using garbage for ethanol.

Bob Dineen is with the industry group the Renewable Fuels Association.

“We have garbage all across the country.”

Here’s why that matters.

Before it makes it to the pump, ethanol needs to be blended at refineries. Dineens says those
refineries are far from corn farms and rural ethanol plants, but refineries are often close to big metro
areas, and big-city trash.

“A company that is able to produce from local landfill refuse – he’s clearly going to have an
advantage in terms of transportation, feedstock costs, and all the rest.”

Well, that’s the theory, anyway. The market hasn’t tested garbage-based ethanol yet.

So, what exactly is stopping companies like Indiana Ethanol Power from giving it a go?

Resiak says it’s simple – cities just haven’t been willing to part with their trash.

“Municipalities are very comfortable with putting it in the back of a truck and letting it go to the landfill. They don’t think about it twice. But for us to come in and say we’re going to
take it cheaper and we’re going to save you millions of dollars a year on your tipping fee – that’s different
and that’s kind of scary, and they want to take a good, strong look at that.”

Resiak predicts by the time cities do come around to the idea, there will be even more companies ready to
take garbage bags out of their hands.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

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Food Prices to Stay High

  • Corn production in Colorado. (Photo by Scott Bauer, courtesy of the USDA Agricultural Research Service)

Food prices are expected to keep rising in the
coming year. That’s at least partly because farmers plan
to plant less corn. Dustin Dwyer reports:

Transcript

Food prices are expected to keep rising in the
coming year. That’s at least partly because farmers plan
to plant less corn. Dustin Dwyer reports:

Jim Hilker is an agricultural economist at Michigan State University. He says the
demand for corn is high right now.

“Ethanol’s probably the biggest driver of it, but there’s also been very strong corn
exports.”

Hilker says those exports are going to countries where the wheat crop has
come in lower than expected.

But with all the demand for corn, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says
farmers across the country are planning to plant about 8% less
corn this year, compared to last year. Last year farmers did plant more corn
than they had in more than 50 years. This year, corn production should still
be high, but it might not keep pace with demand.

Hilker says that could mean higher prices for food.

But he says there are a lot of other factors to consider when it comes to
food prices. He says gas is a big one, since food has to be transported.

For The Environment Report, I’m Dustin Dwyer.

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