Speaking of David Fried: after our meeting at Lucky's, David drove me to my car, a 2005 VW Passat TDI (Turbo Diesel), which prompted a little discussion about biodiesel and how it all works. I've been running biodiesel (B99 - 99% biodiesel, 1% petroleum diesel) in the car for approxiamately a month now with no problems. For those of you who are interested in alternatives to the hybrid, I thought I'd post a little info re: biodiesel, considering, from what I've been reading, it's growing exponentially. VW and Mercedes are coming out with a LOT of diesel cars in 2008, which won't be hard since 40% of the cars in Europe (their main market) are diesels. Also, I heard that new biodiesel plants are being built and more stations will begin providing biodiesel, making it more and more readily available. If switching to biodiesel is too costly and difficult for some, then in the spirit of Jim Stewart, we can still drive carbon neutral. But, if you're interested, this is what I did.....
1) I started reading about biodiesel: www.biodiesel.org , www.socalbug.org , www.biodiesel-coop.org/ , www.biodieselmagazine.com
2) I bought the car used online.
3) I found places where they sell biodiesel in L.A. (there are more places than listed here).
4) I took it to the biodiesel station closest to me.
......and it's been running on B99 ever since. Things to note: fuel economy is amazing for diesel engines - you can get 30 to 40 mpgs on many cars. Also, diesel engines normally last much longer than regular gasoline engines, and when the fuel you use is based on a natural lubricant, such as vegetable oil, then the engine lasts even longer. It seems to be catching on in other spin-off industries, and the military is also getting on board.
Some purists prefer converting their diesel engines so that they can run on pure vegetable oil. Treehugger.com has a great little piece on Lovecraft, a business that does these conversions, based right here in L.A. Switching to vegetable oil is my ultimate goal, but I need some time to get to that point. Right now, I think this is the industry to support, and it looks like a very viable alternative to petroleum-based fuels.
4 comments:
Love the initiative! You're making the rest of us look awful bad. Isn't it enough that you're saving LA from public nuisances, you have to save the planet too! Anyhow, here's a few cents from me. RE Group's focus, I think those two goals should be pursued simultaneously and the group's energy should at first be spent on coming up with an initiative/program/campaign that accomplishes that. To that end, I'd like to propose an idea. Suppose small businesses posted a Carbon Emission Rating in their window much the way restaurants currently post their Health Department grade. Whether it be a restaurant, car wash or dry cleaners, customers would know how the businesses they patronize contribute to the depletion of the ozone. Businesses could take steps to increase their ratings and generate positive PR by doing so. Customers could in theory choose to patronize businesses that make an effort to reduce their emission footprint. At first, such a program could be voluntary with a goal set to register say 1000 businesses in the City of Venice and another 1000 in West Hollywood. Businesses that register would be included in an online registry. Improvements in emissions could be tracked on a greater scale so people could appreciate the effects of small incremental changes. I.e., if all businesses switched their bulbs to incandescent or if restaurants installed the proper filters on their grills or if they all switched to biodegradable take-out containers some sort of visual metric could be generated to show how much cubic space was being saved in dumps, how many fewer pounds of carbon were being poured into the atmosphere, etc. It's a long shot, but for consumers who had especially guilty consciences they could reduce a businesses footprint by buying a credit on the business' behalf. Eventually, if the program were succesful enough, it could become legislated. Certainly the case could be made that the impact the collapse or rehabilitation of the environment will have on our overall health and well-being is at least as important to know about as the cleanliness of the kitchens in our restaurants. The first city to make these Carbon Emissions Ratings law will get a huge amount of press and be considered a front-runner. Incentives could be designed, whether with tax breaks or some other special consideration, to reward businesses that are especially pro-active. I'm babbling at this point, but the main idea is here's a program which if implemented properly could be used not only to educate the public, but could also be used as a stepping stone to introduce legislation that would/could have a real impact. If anyone reading this blog thinks this is generally a good idea, I'd love to hear some ideas about how best to proceed. (If you think it's a bad idea I'd also like to hear why) Some points which might be worth hashing out are: (1) Considering factors such as their likelihood of participation, the potential for positive environmental benefits and the best platform for increasing awareness, which business category would be a fruitful one to start with? (2) What would the rating look like? Would it be a number, percentage, a letter? Should it have a relative value since some businesses will no matter how aggressive always be significantly worse polluters than others? I.e., can't put a coffee shop and a gas station on the same scale. (3) What information would the signage include? Ways businesses can increase their ratings? (4) What should the website be called?
I'm also loving the biodiesel information after becoming somewhat frustrated this summer after looking into converting a Diesel Jeep Liberty this past summer. Thanks for getting me fired up again, Nick, no pun intended.
About the Carbon Emission Rating incentive idea for businesses, I believe something similar is in the works for the beach cities near Hermosa Beach. A member of the Hermosa Beach Public Works mentioned a program along those lines to me last week. I will try to find out more about it.
Bio-diesel is not necessarily benign. See http://www.climateark.org/ for alert about palm oil production increasing CO2 emissions as well as habitat destruction. Know where your bio-diesel comes from.
People should read this.
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