Energy musings.

Bruce and I have had an ambitious recent project: now that we own two diesel cars (MB '76 240D and MB '93 300D) and I have a chemistry background, we're working on a "brew your own biodiesel" project.

Many people have been inspired to tank up their diesel cars with biodiesel, which is the result of taking good quality waste vegetable oil, freeing the fatty acids from their ester bonds, and retaining the free fatty acids to use as fuel. Some eco-friendly areas sell bd, but at quite a cost -- $3-4 gallon. Which is fine for the people who have purely an environmental motivation...

But then, there's us. It's all about recycling. Everyone working together. It all makes sense. A restaurant, rather than paying for oil disposal, gives the oil to someone like me, at no cost. I then use the oil in my processor and use it to fuel my car. It doesn't tap so much into limited world fossil fuel resources, true; but to me, it's all about the Circle of Life (cue corny music).

We're on the final construction phases of a larger processor -- I've got the process working great on a small-scale basis.

This past week, while avoiding Black Friday and Black Monday in the US, we were chatting with a friend in Granville Island, Vancouver (one of my most favorite places anywhere) who owns a small yet popular store, Dragonspace. After a while, we developed an interesting idea, if we get the time/money/resources: what if Bruce and I could gather supplies for an appleseed processor to make the biodiesel, and ship it overseas to a community in, say, Africa or South America where fuel is otherwise scarce? Not only would it be a great "feel good" thing for us to do, but again -- it just makes sense.

Which gives me another goal in life towards which I can work. I was feeling depressed and goal-less for a while. This one's pretty lofty, but it's better than just sitting in a rut.