I recently got a call from my friend Safia—another transplant from Tallahassee, Florida—letting me know that our friend, Josh, was in the Los Angeles. He’s the drummer for the band, Look Mexico. “They’re playing at The Echo this weekend,” she said.
“Wow,” I said, “They drove all the way from Tallahassee with gas prices this high?”
“They bought a diesel bus and converted it to vegetable oil.”
That Saturday night, before their gig, Josh, along with other members of the band were kind enough to answer a few questions about their experience.
B: What made you decide to convert to vegetable oil?
Josh: We had some friends who were touring in a full sized bus—they had built and installed a system themselves and we were pretty impressed by that…since…the more we tour the more we go into debt!
(laughter from the band)
Josh: It’s just the nature of rock and roll these days. So we decided to bite the bullet and shell out the money.
B: How much did it cost to convert from diesel to vegetable oil?

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This article is not in reference to the St. Patrick’s tradition of dying your beer green, but instead a round of applause for the New Belgium Brewing company for its efforts to make their beer as eco-friendly as possible. A Popular Mechanics article describes their energy recycling process,

In the brew house, heat typically released as steam preheats incoming water. Temperature sensors automatically open windows to cool the building. Methane gas from an on-site wastewater treatment facility is piped to a generator, which produces enough electricity to cover 10 percent of the brewery’s needs. New Belgium purchases the remainder of its electricity from wind farms, and offsets some of its CO2 emissions by purchasing renewable energy credits on the Chicago Climate Exchange. But according to New Belgium’s sustainability specialist, Nicolas Theisen, there is always room for improvement. “We’re a partner in developing a process to use the carbon dioxide byproduct from fermentation to feed fast-growing algae in silo-shaped bioreactors,” he says. “The oil in the algae can be pressed to make biodiesel, and the rest can go into our waste treatment ponds to make methane.

The New Belgium Brewing company produces the delicious Fat Tire Ale which proudly features a bicycle on the front of the bottle. In support of cyclists everywhere, the company launched two a social action campaigns to encourage the use of bicycles in the daily commute. These two campaigns are “Team Wonder Bike” which asks members to take a pledge to ride their bicycle whenever possible, as well as the “Tour De Fat” a nationwide community cycling campaign to raise money for local charities throughout the Western United States. So if you love the earth, and you love beer, takepart and choose a brewery that strives and inspires social change for the betterment of all of us.

While I enjoyed watching the guys from Mythbusters find ways to improve fuel efficiency yesterday, it seems they left out the promising potential of a car that runs almost entirely on compressed air.  Zero Pollution Motors is preparing to launch 8,000 Compressed Air Vehicles (CAVs) by 2011, which will be sold directly from factories in the United States. (Hopefully they can get someone to fix up their website sooner!)

Check out this video report from CNN:

(Excuse me, Mr. Beck: “No man would drive a smart car”?! I’ll assume that comes from a place of insecurity.)

This is where we need to be heading to remove ourselves from

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As big as alternative energy is getting in the United States, it is really taking shape in the 50th State, Hawaii.   We all know young’uns are good with technological gizmos, but the Aloha State is putting its mainland big brothers to shame with the speed it’s adapting toward energy self sufficiency.   First there was the new law in Hawaii requiring all newly installed residential water heaters to run off of solar power.   Now the island of Maui has announced plans for plant that creates biodiesel from a crop the Pacific state has a whole lot of access to: algae.

A Hawaiian conglomerate of HR BioPetroleum, Alexander & Baldwin Inc and Hawaiian Electric Industries is developing the Maui plant to harvest large quantities of lipid oil to fuel the state’s combustible needs.   If factors align, the plant could begin production as soon as 2011.  Hawaiian Governor Linda Lingle had this to say on the proposed plant:

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As school districts begin creating their budgets for the 2008-2009 year, the rising price of diesel is affecting the bottom lines of schools all over the nation, as more and more money needs to be allotted for gas purchases for all those big yellow school busses.   As I’m sure you’re aware, school budgets are often somewhat tight is it is, and the skyrocketing price of fuel isn’t helping any.   An article in the Lincoln Journal Star highlights the issue.

As of the end of March, the district had spent $422,260 on diesel fuel. Its budget was $393,950.  Officials predict they’ll spend another $170,740 through the end of the fiscal year.

And as prices go up and up, more money is taken away from other parts of the budget to keep the busses going.

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Is BioTown USA running on fumes? Some say that the ambitious farming hamlet of Reynolds, Indiana, which set out to become the nation’s first energy independent town, has hit a few bumps on the road to their renewable Shangri-La.

Since 2005, Reynolds has been working toward generating its own electricity and gas for all homes and businesses by using a variety of renewable resources ” from municipal trash to hog manure, and even town sewage. Called BioTown USA, the project was designed and fast-tracked by the Indiana Department of Agriculture. One of the major appeals of the project was its promise of decreased energy costs to the residents of Reynolds. With crude oil around $100 a barrel right now, a barrel of biomass at $40 holds promising relief for rising fuel costs.

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Music festivals such as Lollapalooza in Chicago and the Treasure Island Music Festival in San Francisco are doing their best to ensure that these behemoths of show are leaving the environment green after the music is done. Lollapalooza, scheduled for August 1-3, and Treasure Island, slated for September 20-21, both are touting their efforts concerning environmental awareness.

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by Kerry Trueman

Used grease used to be one of those things you couldn’t give away. Restaurants had to pay someone to haul off all those gallons of used cooking oil from their deep fryers. But that was before folks like Willie Nelson and Darryl Hannah jumped on the biofuel bandwagon. Now, biodiesel’s so hot, the AP reports, that restaurants in Portland, Oregon, are selling their used fryer oil for $1.20 a gallon.