From: Jeff Green [activist@bongoboy.com]
Sent: Sunday,
January 30, 2005 6:55 PM
To:
HVBIODIESELCOOP@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [HVBIODIESELCOOP] HV
Bio-diesel Co-op meeting report
Friends,
It was a dark and stormy
night - it really was! Well, not stormy, but a light, cold, snow fell leaving a
few inches on the ground in the Hudson Valley still, many came from afar to
attend the meeting of the HV Bio-diesel Co-op in New Paltz. With thanks to the
Co-op and Jonathan Wright for their hospitality, we found refuge from the
weather outside and a place for warm conversation inside.
Several new
people attended the meeting. Pete Healey came down from Kingston driving his
"greasil" car, a vehicle powered on 100% waste vegetable oil. The process is
simple: strain out the muck and pour the oil into one of two gas tanks in your
vehicle. With heat routed from the engine, the WVO oil is heated to 150 degrees
at which point a switch is set that cuts off flow from the diesel tank and
allows the WVO tank to flow into the engine. Another guest, Dale Gibbons, also
drives a greasil car.
Pete explains that vegetable oil isn't good for
short trips since it needs to be heated to 150 degrees before it can be used for
fuel, but for longer trips, where the engine gets a chance to heat itself and
use that heat to heat the WVO in the auxiliary tank, the car works just fine.
Apparently his sources of WVO are steady and the work of gathering isn't
onerous.
Before your car can use WVO it needs to be converted. Pete
converted his car with a little help and there was talk of a guy in Woodstock
(anyone know who that is?) who claims to have done them.
Two other new
guests this snowy evening were Jerry Robock and Nick Kuvach who drove up from
Yorktown and Putnam Valley, respectively. Both Jerry and Nick have started a
website of interest to bio-diesel fans that will soon host a small alternative
fuels business.
The website is here: www.communitybiofuels.com
Jerry's background
is in working for corporations whose interest is alternative fuels and his
insight into the availability and use of bio-diesel and other fuels was
fascinating. Right now, the company he's working for is selling 3 million
gallons of B20 bio-diesel to school bus companies. Jerry and Nick are working on
a setup in Jerry's Yorktown garage to convert WVO to bio-diesel on a small scale
but plan to upgrade to a larger system once this one is perfected.
On the
matter of bio-diesel in school busses, Jerry brought along some articles for our
reading. The Michigan Soybean Promotion Committee has taken bio-diesel to heart
for it partially funds school districts in the state to use bio-diesel in their
fleets. This is from their press release:
"These 12 school districts will
drive their 421 diesel buses and 16 diesel powered support vehicles
approximately 7 million miles between Oct. 1, 2004 – Sept. 30, 2005 and use
nearly 1 million gallons of diesel fuel. Of that diesel, approximately 200,000
gallons will be biodiesel. That amounts to the oil from more than 125,000
bushels of soybeans to be used in their B20 fuel (20% biodiesel blended with 80%
petroleum diesel) commitment."
Read the full article here: http://tinyurl.com/66z7w
Also in attendance was
Lynne Eckerdt from the Putnam Smart Growth Alliance, a coalition of the leading
environmentalists and community organizers in Putnam County. [www.pclt.net] Putnam County
recently bought the farm, Tilly Foster Farm, an historic farm in the town of
Southeast (Brewster) that has been used as a horse farm since agriculture died
out in Putnam County a generation ago. The farm's 200 acres do nothing more now
than provide open space and views, as well as hay for the handful of remaining
horses and the thought was tossed around that the farm might produce soy or
other feedcrops to fuel county vehicles. Does anyone know what the yield of soy
would be per acre in our valley and if grants are available from anywhere to for
a municipal start-up such as this?
There was no attempt to set up a
future meeting so I'll leave that up to the list to decide.
So, there ya
have it. We missed those who couldn't make it and hope we'll see you in the
future.
All my best wishes to you and yours,
Jeff
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