Photo for the Family

Skiing the Tahoe backcountry. 22 February 2006. That's me

Hanging Out in Tahoe

Biggreentruck has had a few new experiences this week: it got its first taste of biodiesel, it hosted its first party and it had a successful, if somewhat odd, oil gathering adventure.

On the way up to Northstar to ski with a couple of natties last week, we passed the Northstar fueling station where B10 can be had at the pump. I know B10 is barely biodiesel but it's better than the B5 available down in Reno (that fuel required a 7 day waiting period--no idea why). And, it was the same price B0 in town.

The CHOSS Reunion provided biggreentruck with a chance to have some visitors over for lunch. It was reminiscent of the Westy days and while we welcomed biggreentruck into the CHOSS family we mourned the Westfalia a bit too. Being able to see the truck over the huge snowbanks on Mt. Rose Highway was a definite bonus that made it easier for all of us to make our way back to basecamp after our backcountry skiing adventures. Now for the oil story: everything I read tells me biggreentruck should get Chinese Restaurant oil as a first choice. Well, Incline Village, NV, has a one of those so biggreentruck pulled in there this afternoon.
-'Hi, I have a rather odd request....'
-'?Como?'
-'Do you have any used vegetable oil?'
-'?Mande?....oh, si!'
-'What kind of oil is it?'
-'C***eed oil'
-'huh? Canola? Soy?'
-'No, no C***eed. It's from a seed.'
-'Uh, ok great! Thanks!'
Of course China Village is run and staffed entirely by Spanish speakers. It seemed all the customers were also speaking Spanish. They were very nice and filled my cubie from waste oil they had in the kitchen. I didn't even have to dumster dive for it. Still don't have any idea what kind of oil it is but it is a lot nicer looking than the last batch: clear, reddish, not chunky.

biggreentruck goes to yosemite

Tuesday was a great day for biggreentruck. We took off from the home base of www.vegcar.net and headed into Yosemite NP for a great day of skiing at Badger Pass. In the evening we set about filtering that oil from the fancy Fresno restaurant. I devised a 'new' system to keep the bag filter out of the tank and the mess relatively contained (we only had one minor spill). Turn a 1 gal water jug upside down, cut the bottom off, place the bag filter inside, remove the jug's cap and set the thing in the fill hole of the tank. Add oil and listen to it slowly drip into the tank. Keep the cap so you can plug up the bottom of the contraption between filter sessions.

Watched oil never filters so it seemed like a good time to start reading Biodiesel Power by Lyle Estill (available from New Society Publishers www.newsociety.com -- they've just gone carbon neutral). Too bad the book was so good I ended up focusing more on it than on the oil.

Basically, the book chronicals both the biofuels movement and Lyle's own adventures as a backyard brewer of biodiesel. Touching on everything from the science and chemisty of brewing and burning biodiesel to the politics of the National Biodiesel Board to the people powering the movement, Biodiesel Power is a great primer for alternative fuels.

Lyle's discussion of the do-it-yourself vs buy-a-kit mentalities really hit home as I fall somewhere in between the two not wanting things handed to me outright while not feeling the need to reinvent the wheel.

Emissions is something that came up in biggreentruck's recent education appearance. Lyle touches on that too when he talks about the EPA studies on rats living a box of emissions from B100. Seems, unlike the rats who lived in diesel emissions, the B100 rats lived long, healthy lives. I'm curious to know how rats fare in wvo emissions.

I'm anxious to finish the book to find out how Piedmont Biofuels Industrial LLC has fared both as a business venture and in their quest to create a closed energy loop using the waste products from biodiesel production to create more biodiesel, or I guess I could just go their website www.biofuels.coop. Since the book was printed on 100% post-consumer paper, I'll keep reading.

the quest for good grease

During our most recent ski trip in King's Canyon NP, biggreen truck made its very first educational appearance. The idea of veg was a bit confusing to the LA 10th graders at first but the ensuing discussion about energy production and efficiency convinced everyone that biggreentruck should make a habit of 'doing education.'

At the end of the program, biggreentruck headed down the hill to Fresno to pick up some oil from a rather high end restaurant. Seemed like a great idea at the time but we need a little more practice in judging the quality of oil while it sits in the dumpster. We scooped out about 7 gals on Monday and are still trying to filter it. It's a slow process for several reasons including: 1)the lovely bag filter is pretty gunked up and I can't figure a way to clean it without making a huge mess, 2)the colder temps have slowed the oil down, and 3)as it settled, this batch of oil had a lot of solid fats (gross) come to the surface.

Lest anyone think biggreentruck is just one misadventure after another, we took a slight detour on the way to Yosemite to visit Dan and his veg Mercedes 300. He graciously contributed 9 gals of beautifully filtered wvo, a few hours of stimulating conversion about veg and progressive politics and a quiet place to park for the night. Thanks, Dan!

The ongoing quest for good grease and few random vehicle problems were what I expected when I started ripping biggreentruck's fuel system apart last month. I did not expect (tho perhaps I should have) to find myself welcomed into a vibrant, diverse community of folks really making alternative fuels work. Which leads us to the next post.....

What's that red stuff?

Ew...it's transmission fluid. Yuk. Luckily, there was Bob at Clutch Unlimited in Fresno who connected me with a rebuilt tranny in record time. Kind of put a damper on my 'quick trip to town' in between ski programs. After the tranny incident, I wasn't much for hunting down wvo. A couple of unsuccessful attempts that left me wishing I had a good on-board filter system with a pump; I saw a Smart and Final where I picked up 10 gals of virgin oil. It certainly isn't my first choice (it may not burn as cleanly and completely as wvo, it defeats the whole recycling thing and it's a bit pricey). Well, it was considerably cheaper per gal than diesel or even gasoline. With another week in the mountains, I hope to connect with someone in town who has wvo.