Hi friends,
Before I get to the newest video, I want to say thanks for the ratings and reviews on ITunes! If you haven’t yet, please check us out on ITunes and leave a rating and/or review, which helps us get notice in a very large ITunes world. Just do a search for Our Renewable Nation in the ITunes store.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nHLctl761k
Our latest video, ORN# 5 Cellulsoic Ethanol, is Carrick’s tour of Verenium’s demonstration plant in Jennings, Louisiana. Verenium has been developing a process of using high-energy crops and native plants to make cellulosic ethanol to fuel cars and trucks.
Ethanol has been a controversial alternative fuel to gasoline, with a lot of headlines and politics involved for the last several years. Much of the gasoline now sold in the U.S. has a blend of 10% ethanol, which is being made from corn. Making ethanol from corn really gets into a whole host of issues, like growing food crops for fuel. Corn is an energy-intensive crop to grow and farmers end up using a lot more energy to grow and harvest the corn than we get from using the ethanol in our cars. Then there’s the problem of rising food prices because the corn is being used for fuel instead of food, and corn is in A LOT of food we buy (watch the movie King Corn or read the book ‘The Omnivore’s Dilemma’ by Michael Pollan for more on that). Plus, even planting every acre of land available in the U.S. with corn to make ethanol wouldn’t get us anywhere near what we use for transportation fuel in this country.
Cellulosic ethanol can be made from native plants and grasses that need very little help to grow abundantly, and from crops that are able to produce many times more ethanol per acre than corn. One of the big challenges with producing cellulosic ethanol is breaking down the cell walls to get at the sugars trapped in these plants materials. Verenium has developed a process of conditioning and pressurizing the plant materials then adding enzymes to break down the cell walls, making it possible to yield a much greater amount of ethanol from plants than the process of producing corn ethanol.
On our cross-country journey we were given a rare opportunity to visit and tour Verenium’s cellulosic ethanol demonstration plant in Louisiana. This is not a place that is open to the public. In fact, no kid has ever walked through the facility before Carrick. There is a lot of money invested in developing this process and a handful of other companies are in the race to perfect the secrets to making cellulosic ethanol. Naturally, they are selective about how many people they bring through, so we were very lucky!
You may notice this is a short video, shorter than normal. During our tour of Verenium I couldn’t imagine how we were going to take a subject as complex as cellulosic ethanol and make a 5-minute video for a broad audience including kids. There was so much to show and tell, and so many issues involved that in the end I decided to keep it short and not overload it with information. There is a lot of discussion and debate about ethanol on the internet, so our video serves as a “taste of” and anyone interested can do more poking around on their own.
We use SO MUCH gasoline in this country for transportation that it’s hard to imagine any one source of fuel that we can produce to take its place. That’s not to say it can’t be done, it’s just to highlight the tremendous challenge any alternative fuel faces. Making vehicles more fuel-efficient is one way to help meet that challenge. Also, the idea of a Chevy Volt-style hybrid with a fuel-driven range extender would dramatically lower our use of fuel by letting us drive on electricity most of the time and only use fuel when driving farther than 50 miles.
Before I close this out I want to mention the upcoming sustainability fair in Hull, Massachusetts by our friends at Sustainable South Shore, who helped sponsor our project. We went last year and it was great – here’s more info:
7th Annual Earth Day Sustainable Living Expo
Sat., April 17, 2010 at the DCR Mary Jeanette Murray
Bathhouse, 204 Nantasket Ave., Hull, MA 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
FREE. See website: www.sustainablesouthshore.org
for details about last year's Festival vendors and organizations
plus updated information for the 2010 Sustainable Living Expo.
40 Table spaces, inside and outside, of sustainable living related
companies and organizations. Sponsored by Sustainable South
Shore Inc. (18 So. Shore Towns), a Chapter of MCAN,
www.massclimateaction.net.
Info.: 781-925-9066 nancy@sustainablesouthshore.org
Hull Wind 1 Turbine tours from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Showing posts with label verenium. Show all posts
Showing posts with label verenium. Show all posts
Friday, April 9, 2010
Sunday, May 17, 2009
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
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org
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
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
A Final Ask Before We Go
Hi friends,
Next Monday morning we head out on our cross-country journey, with a full video itinerary that you saw in yesterday's message.
Many of you have been so generous to support our eco-video project with a donation, and we are truly grateful for that! When we began planning this project last June I was expecting our funding to come largely from companies sponsoring us, those many 'green' companies that support eco-actions. When the economy took a turn for the worse last fall the money companies spent on supporting eco-projects disappeared. Fortunately for us several companies/groups have supported us regardless, including Verenium and Sudbury Earth Decade. So Carrick and I have hit the road over the last 9 months giving presentations about our upcoming project and handing out fliers at fairs and conferences. We collected names and emails from hundreds of people who want to follow our cross-country video adventure.
If you haven't done so already, I'm asking you now to please consider donating to support our cross-country eco-video project. It is only with the support of people like you that we will be successful! Since we began planning for this last June we have been so fortunate to receive much great promotion in the media - locally, regionally, and nationally. With days left before we leave we have a huge momentum of publicity and supporters for what we're trying to accomplish.
I hate asking for money. I'm no salesperson. No doubt you are feeling the effects of the economy like everyone else. All I can say is that this is the most important action I have taken on in my lifetime, we are in the position to make a tremendous impact in a way that nobody has done before, and we need your support to be successful. I'm not asking for you to give us money to go on a 2-month vacation. Yesterday's list of destinations makes that very clear - we will be working hard for 2 months to create our eco-video series! What I didn't mention in that destination list are all the presentations we are giving along the way in addition to the video work. At some point we'll need to get some sleep :)
So here is where we stand, financially. With the generous support of many family and friends, we have raised at this point $9,000. I was originally shooting for $20,000 as a fundraising goal. Our absolute bare minimum that we need for the two months is $14,000. We'll raise part of that through donations at presentations on the road, but I know we will still come up short. I have to stress that we are not profiting from this eco-video project, that we are distributing our videos free to schools and of course all available online free as well. The people and ideas, renewable energy and sustainable living, are too important not to get out into the mainstream in as big a way as possible.
If you are willing to make a donation to support our project, you can do so in two ways. First, if you go to our website, www.OurRenewableNation.org, you can make a donation online through PayPal. It's easy and safe to do. If you would feel more comfortable sending a check by mail instead, please make out the check to my name at:
Colin McCullough
66 Buttonwood Avenue
Sutton, MA 01590
My in-laws live closeby and will be taking care of the mail for us, so if you send a check and we've left on our journey already then they'll be able to deposit the check in the bank for us.
Believe me, I've been really worried all along that the financial part of this project would keep us from moving forward. Jen and I talked about a number of different possibilities, like doing half the trip one year, then the other half the next, etc. In the end we decided that what we're doing is too timely to delay - this kind of thing needs to happen sooner rather than later. So we are going on faith that it will all work out. Faith and the support of many, many generous people. Any donation, big or small, will help us.
Many thanks to you for your continued support,
Colin, Jen, Carrick, and Gareth McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org
Next Monday morning we head out on our cross-country journey, with a full video itinerary that you saw in yesterday's message.
Many of you have been so generous to support our eco-video project with a donation, and we are truly grateful for that! When we began planning this project last June I was expecting our funding to come largely from companies sponsoring us, those many 'green' companies that support eco-actions. When the economy took a turn for the worse last fall the money companies spent on supporting eco-projects disappeared. Fortunately for us several companies/groups have supported us regardless, including Verenium and Sudbury Earth Decade. So Carrick and I have hit the road over the last 9 months giving presentations about our upcoming project and handing out fliers at fairs and conferences. We collected names and emails from hundreds of people who want to follow our cross-country video adventure.
If you haven't done so already, I'm asking you now to please consider donating to support our cross-country eco-video project. It is only with the support of people like you that we will be successful! Since we began planning for this last June we have been so fortunate to receive much great promotion in the media - locally, regionally, and nationally. With days left before we leave we have a huge momentum of publicity and supporters for what we're trying to accomplish.
I hate asking for money. I'm no salesperson. No doubt you are feeling the effects of the economy like everyone else. All I can say is that this is the most important action I have taken on in my lifetime, we are in the position to make a tremendous impact in a way that nobody has done before, and we need your support to be successful. I'm not asking for you to give us money to go on a 2-month vacation. Yesterday's list of destinations makes that very clear - we will be working hard for 2 months to create our eco-video series! What I didn't mention in that destination list are all the presentations we are giving along the way in addition to the video work. At some point we'll need to get some sleep :)
So here is where we stand, financially. With the generous support of many family and friends, we have raised at this point $9,000. I was originally shooting for $20,000 as a fundraising goal. Our absolute bare minimum that we need for the two months is $14,000. We'll raise part of that through donations at presentations on the road, but I know we will still come up short. I have to stress that we are not profiting from this eco-video project, that we are distributing our videos free to schools and of course all available online free as well. The people and ideas, renewable energy and sustainable living, are too important not to get out into the mainstream in as big a way as possible.
If you are willing to make a donation to support our project, you can do so in two ways. First, if you go to our website, www.OurRenewableNation.org, you can make a donation online through PayPal. It's easy and safe to do. If you would feel more comfortable sending a check by mail instead, please make out the check to my name at:
Colin McCullough
66 Buttonwood Avenue
Sutton, MA 01590
My in-laws live closeby and will be taking care of the mail for us, so if you send a check and we've left on our journey already then they'll be able to deposit the check in the bank for us.
Believe me, I've been really worried all along that the financial part of this project would keep us from moving forward. Jen and I talked about a number of different possibilities, like doing half the trip one year, then the other half the next, etc. In the end we decided that what we're doing is too timely to delay - this kind of thing needs to happen sooner rather than later. So we are going on faith that it will all work out. Faith and the support of many, many generous people. Any donation, big or small, will help us.
Many thanks to you for your continued support,
Colin, Jen, Carrick, and Gareth McCullough
www.OurRenewableNation.org
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