Batty in Austin, TX

Hi friends,

It's been several days since the last update so I wanted to let you know our latest news. We've been in Austin, TX for a few days and are heading out tomorrow morning for our interview in Roscoe, TX at a wind farm then on to Lubbock to stay the night with hosts. Here's a review of the last several days:

On Thursday, we did visit the BuildSmart Center in New Orleans, which is a training center for contractors and homeowners about rebuilding with green, sustainable materials and renewable energy. We met with Larry Haines of Road Home Builders, a company that is building new green homes in the city; Larry did a walk-through with Carrick of the different green building materials and energy conservation measures that are on display at the BuildSmart Center. We also got the address of a few zero-energy homes that were built in the hardest-hit area of the city from the hurricane, so we went down to see the exterior and got some more video there. Zero-energy homes are designed to produce as much energy as they use, in this case using solar electric panels and solar hot water panels on the roofs. On Thursday night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the UU Community Church to a fun group - their church had to be torn down due to the hurricane damage but they like others in New Orleans have strong spirit and will rebuild.

We traveled on Friday to tour the Verenium plant in Jennings, Louisiana, which is the test and demonstration site for their method of producing cellulosic ethanol. They use different feedstocks, such as sugarcane waste, to create ethanol fuel in a process very similar to brewing beer, working to produce cellulosic ethanol in quantities much greater and much more efficiently than corn. Carrick got a guided tour of the demonstration plant and we got some great video of the process. It's very much a working demonstration site and we had to wear the hardhats, and eye and ear protection, and I don't think it's a place that the public and especially kids get to visit, so it was a big deal to get the whole guided tour! We traveled on in the afternoon through Houston then out to Austin, where we've been over the weekend.

Saturday we were planning to head south to visit San Antonio and get some shots for our video about the upcoming biogas facility, which will be the first municipal sewage treatment plant in the U.S. to capture methane gas from the solids (or, eh, poop) and turn it into natural gas to run in city vehicles. Unfortunately for us there was a torrential downpour in the afternoon and most of what we were going to visit there (including the Alamo) is outside, so we stayed in Austin for a rainy afternoon. The company that is developing the biogas plant in San Antonio, Ameresco, is a Massachusetts-based company so we can still get an interview when we come home and put together a video profile with that.

Today we gave a presentation at the UU church here in Austin then got some video in the city for our Green City Spotlight of Austin. We are traveling through 6 of the Top 10 Greenest Cities in America on our journey, so we are making a Green City Spotlight video for each city we visit, showing what they are doing to be more sustainable cities and earn their spot in the Top 10! Austin has some great examples that we visited today, including their city hall that has a green roof, solar panels, was made from local materials, etc. The city owns the municipal power company, Austin Energy, which is perhaps the most progressive electric utility company in the nation with the highest mix of renewable energy. They have many programs to encourage homeowners to conserve energy and promote renewables. One very unique and fun green aspect of Austin is the Congress Avenue Bridge, underneath which is host to the largest urban bat population in the U.S., over 1.5 million bats! At dusk every night they come FLOODING out from under the bridge to get some dinner, and to stand on the bridge and see them all come out is just amazing. What a sight! The smell was not so amazing....but there were just clouds of bats for about 10 minutes coming out from under the bridge.

TRIP STATS: 2,769 miles driven so far, we've already lost track of how many hours on the road total.

READER QUESTION: we have two this time!
Are you getting any press? It seems like such a good story. It should be turning up in people's newspapers when you are in town. ANSWER: we haven't been getting press, but I haven't been going after that either. We just don't have enough time and reliable internet access to coordinate that. It's been all I can do to keep on top of our video schedule and return emails, I really can't.
Reader Question: What's the downside to the fuel getting too hot? What is heating it up? ANSWER: This is in response to my post about how using the A/C while using veg oil gets the oil too hot, on hot days. The short answer is that the engine isn't designed to deal with fuel that gets too hot and could cause damage - diesel never gets too hot but veg oil can. I have a temperature sensor as part of the veggie system that tells me the temps of the veg oil and I get worried when it gets over 190 degrees F, so we shut off the A/C and roll down the windows, to let the oil cool down some. The veg oil system heats the oil with radiator fluid from the engine, and when the engine gets hot from running A/C in a car with a big, non-aerodynamic roof rack on top, the coolant gets hot and then the oil gets real hot. If the temps get too hot it can literally cook the injection pump, and at $1000 just for a rebuilt pump I don't want to have that problem.

Be well,
Colin
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Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org