Freedom Fuels: FREE, Downloadable Alternative Fuels Doc
by Kyeann Sayer, Nomad on 01.29.07
Have you wondered about the differences among biodiesel, vegetable oil, and ethanol? Curious about why we're using gasoline when there are so many cheap and easy alternatives available? At around 45 minutes, Freedom Fuels is a quick and painless way for anyone to get informed. Download it! Pass it on to your friends and neighbors.
"With our distribution system primarily Internet-based, we've bypassed normal methods," remarked producer and director Martin O'Brien in a thick, Irish brogue. "It's like, boom! Kick it out when it's 18 and, you know, let it out into the Internet world and we'll move on and make another film about an important topic."
O'Brien, who financed the project and has relied on the help of volunteers, took advantage of the Sundance hubbub to promote Freedom Fuels from a biodiesel school bus on Main Street in Park City last weekend.
"I don't mean to disrespect Sundance, and I have a lot of respect for Robert Redford and everything, but our method is by any means necessary. The Ice Caps are melting."
O'Brien connected with City Academy middle school chemistry teacher Shei Wickelson through the Clean Cities Coalition in Salt Lake City. Her students converted the bus to run on biodiesel.
"I found out about a study that the EPA had done that showed that the air pollution around school buses is 15 times higher than the allowable limits, which is even harder on kids lungs because they're still developing," Wickelson said.
"I started teaching at a really supportive school and they were into the idea [of converting a bus] and so we worked our entire chemistry curriculim around the kids doing research, us making our own biodiesel and getting the bus running. It was a really cool environmental project, but it was also really a great way to teach science. The kids got so into it and felt so important."
Two years later, City Academy continues to use the bus for field trips and excursions, like one to Half Moon Bay, California last summer. (Students already ride public transit to school each day, so the bus is not used for a pick-up route.)
"The whole point of a school bus is not just for media," O'Brien noted. "There are people here from all over the world and they say 'Wow, my kids can run around in a school bus that has clean air coming out the back?' So that makes them take the information back home."
You can take it home, too! ::Freedom Fuels
It troubles me deeply that so many people are spending so much of their passion on biodiesel. It truly is a wasteful endeavor. You can either make it out of WVO, which best case would replace 1% of our petroleum consumption. Or purpose grown biodiesel, which has absolutely terrible gallons per arch yield---A complete misallocation of agricultural land.
Only Cellusotic ethanol and algae biodiesel have any real hope of being viable answer---everything else is a waste of time and human energy.
I want to make an addendum statement to that of the previous post. Brazil is a country which has made biodiesal a viable option. It is a country which is independent of oil importation, because much of their energy requirements are made up with the "waste' by products of their agricultural businesses. If one agriculturally based country can do it, why can't we!?
Again the misinformation continues. I am surprised that Treehugger is helping to continue the misconception that a vehicle must be "converted" to run on biodiesel. Any diesel vehicle can use biodiesel with NO conversion necessary.
Conversion of a diesel vehicle is necessary for it to use straight Waste Vegetable Oil (WVO) as a fuel. Such a vehicle can then use waste oil usually obtained free from restaurants, so that they don't have to pay to have it disposed of.
Please Treehugger, help to clear up this misconception that continues to spread.
Depending on the vehicle some modifications may need to be made such as new fuel lines and filter. Not significant, but changes nonetheless. However I agree that it is misleading to say "convert the bus." I've been running biodiesel in my 05 VW Passat for two years with zero modifications.
The one quote in the story doesn't make any sense. "Wow, my kids can run around in a school bus that has clean air coming out the back?"
Biodiesel may be renewable, but clean it is not. It still pollutes pretty much the same as regular diesel.
1. I thought Brazil was mostly Ethanol? I'm sure they are using some Bio-diesel, but I was under the impression that the technology for most of the flex-fuel vehicles now sold in North America was created initially for the Brazilian Ethanol market.
2. There may not be a major conversion required for Bio-diesel but there are higher maintenance requirements. If you are going to run Bio-diesel please ensure that you, at a minimum, follow your owners manuals recommendation for routine maintenance *to the letter*. If your owners manual has a "heavy use" and a "light use" maintenance schedule you should use the "heavy use" schedule to ensure that your vehicle is running at peak efficiency.
I don't get why they don't just upload their video to YouTube / GoogleVideo .. would be soo much more convenient (and cheapter for them)
Biodiesel and flex fuels are the wave of the future.
The oil companies are supressing the technology.
Even the auto industry does not inform car buyers that flexifuel is installed on many new cars.
It's only available in mp4 :( anyway of having a wmv or flv (flash) version of it. I'd help publicize it more if an alternative to mp4 was available.
The movie is now viewable at Google Video:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-7646743742330077442&hl=en-GB
Cheers,
Daren
thanks, Daren!
100% biodiesel is in fact cleaner than petroleum diesel as it produces significantly less carbon monoxide, sulphur, and particulates when burned. The various blends of petro and bio diesel (i.e. B20) are of course less clean than 100% bio.
Biodiesel is not a solution to our oil addiction because the huge amounts of farmland that would get taken out of food production just to meet current demand as a previous post points out. It is however a viable option for fueling fleets of vehicles such as transit buses and recycling trucks.