Austin Alt Car: face-to-face with a biofuel Hummer
click for more shots of the biodiesel H1
The H1 in the center of the Austin Alt Car expo show floor was decked out in a Health Yes! paint job but it was the handmade sign that caught the eye. "Powered by Vegetable Oil and Biodiesel," it read and was yet another one of these hard-to-know-why type of conversions. I mean, if you're trying to win greenie points, why start with a vehicle that, by anybody's calculations, burns tremendous amounts of fuel?
Whatever the reason, the Hummer was part of the booth sponsored by
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
jason burroughs 10:04AM (10/21/2008)
Sebastian,
Thanks for stopping by our booth, but I wish you would have said Hi and asked about what we were showing. The SBA had nothing to do with our booth contents, but I offered to host their literature since I am a member. They are headquartered here in Austin, so it was easy for me to help with this. We also hosted literature for the Biodiesel Coalition of Texas, who had nothing to do with the contents of the booth either.
The Hummer is a customer's show vehicle, and is a decommissioned military issue model. The company that owns it, HealthYes!, uses it to display at shows and special events, and barely drives it. I'd much rather someone like them have it than a single person using it as a commuter vehicle (they bought it from a friend in Chicago actually driving the thing). If you'd asked, I would have told you this.
I don't understand why you're looking for hypocrisy in what we're doing instead of giving us the benefit of the doubt. I've put my life on hold as I've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and the past three years to help build a market for alternative fuels. Your argument is to say that nobody should be using the old Mercedes when they only get 20-25MPG instead of driving VW's that get double, or that SUV's shouldn't exist at all because there are better alternatives.
Sometimes people fly to special events to talk about the environment - the expectation is that their usage of fuel will be far outweighed by the larger impact of their message. HealthYes! would have had the Hummer regardless, so I'm thrilled that they chose to reduce its impact by converting it to run on vegetable oil, to promote it by putting the labels on the side, and allowing us to show the variety of vehicles that can run on WVO. It also helped bring us more people to the booth who then were educated on the use of alternative vehicles.
As for the fuel cap, fire code requires that tanks in a public event be drained to 1/4 full, have vehicle batteries disconnected, and have fuel caps taped over to warn people not to fill up.
Please revise the headline for this article and change the content to reflect this new information. This booth was 100% paid for and set up by DieselGreen Fuels of Austin.
Thank you,
Jason Burroughs
DieselGreen Fuels, Austin TX
http://www.dieselgreenfuels.com
512-247-FUEL
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roverguy 1:45PM (10/21/2008)
The Hummer is perfect at showing any vehicle can be made to work with alt fuels and lower emissions. It may not get better MPG but lowering emissions is a good thing for the environment. If more big SUV's and trucks ran bio/alt fuels the environment would be better for everyone. We need buses, trucks, and large vehicles for many uses so why not make them better for the earth by running bio/alt fuels. It's proven that veggie fuel lowers emissions, so why not use it.
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george 11:46PM (10/23/2008)
it's great to use the waste oil, but I like to eat my veggies, not burn them in a hummer
Dale Wood 9:50PM (2/05/2009)
Hello. My name is Dale Wood, and I am the guy who owns/drives the Hummer H1 in question. And, as Jason B. mentions, it was indeed purchased from a friend out of Chicago named John H. John primarily used the H1 to pull his large boat around the great state of Illinois.
I am the President of HealthYes!, a growing preventive screening business, and I truly believe that the Hummer sends a very (VERY!) positive message to other drivers of large vehicles. What is the message you ask? The message is that you can drive an eco-friendly vehicle, and don’t have to sacrifice power and/or look wimpy. I believe these are both major hurdles for the eco-friendly movement. And, for the record, I live in Austin, Texas … and, if people would follow my example, there would be a LOT less fossil fuel consumed in Texas.
In my view, the situation was simple. I could (i) leave the vehicle on the road burning up fossil fuels and dirtying the environment, or (ii) purchase it with my own money (not company funds), convert it, and demonstrate that there is a way, without sacrifice, to keep the large vehicles and be eco-friendly (and, I loved the idea of this positive message being associated with HealthYes!). If you are familiar with Texas, there are going to be large vehicles for a very long period into the future.
In summary, Sebastian B., there are positive people who will look for, emphasize, and make light of positive examples in hopes of motivating others. And, there are people who will look for negatives, skew them if possible, and try to make ‘newsworthy’ articles for self-benefit. I think you have proven, quite effectively, which you are.
I believe that greenie points abound for the HealthYes! H1 Hummer. And, frankly, I hope that many F150, F250, F350, Suburban, Tahoe, H2, and H3 owners follow the example. Just imagine the difference that would make for Mother Earth. I hope this provides you with the answer to your ‘hard-to-know-why’ inquiry and demonstrates an alternative angle you could have taken with your article.
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