Jay Mankita, folk singer, promotes biodiesel
Following in the footsteps of the LA artist promoting E85, folk singer Jay Mankita is raising awareness for biodiesel and vegetable oil, traveling to schools demonstrating his converted 2003 Volkswagen Jetta to students and curious parents. The Jetta was modified with a Greasecar kit, which allows the car to run on a combination of biodiesel fuel and vegetable oil. The singer stressed the fuels are better for the environment and help us reach energy independence, on top of saving him some money. The Greasecar kit proved more reliable in winter, compared to systems using only vegetable oil, since the biodiesel allows him to start up the car in cold temperatures. Once the coolant heats up the vegetable oil, it becomes thin enough to be used in the engine. While the singer promotes the use of biodiesel and vegetable oil, he realizes this is only a partial solution in the quest for energy independence, since not enough land is available to power everyone's car with biodiesel. [Source: Greenwich Time, with a tip from Alex Nunez]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Howard Lee Harkness 3:09PM (6/29/2006)
"since not enough land is available to power everyone's car with biodiesel."
I've seen estimates that algae-based biodiesel production might take as much as 15,000 square miles to produce enough diesel to replace all petroleum-based fuel usage in the US (assuming all vehicles were diesel). This would be scattered all over the country, to take avantage of sources of sewage and other food sources for the algae. 15,000 square miles sound like a big number, but it's about 1-2% of the amount of land currently being used just to raise crops in the US.
I suppose this singer is only aware of soybean oil biodiesel, which has a much lower yield per acre.
See http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html
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snakesausage 8:56PM (6/29/2006)
Great job Jay Mankita. I generally don’t like folk singing hippies but he has the right idea and seems very educated about the correct direction for the energy solution.
First thing that we need to do is get the NOx mandate deferred for a few years while the ULSD and particulate filter technologies mature. This would spur the introduction of more diesel cars, lets face it not everyone will want to use biodiesel, for us to convert.
Diesel (for most people) along with hybrids (city dwellers) or even better, hybrid diesel, is the short term solution for our foreign oil importation. This will give us time to mature electric motors, hydrogen storage, hot fusion, and fuel cell technologies for the long-term solution.
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