econovus Blog

I’ve always kept an eye on solar technology in general. Its interesting to watch as the price/performance ratio improves, as well as overall adoption. Obviously some of the government incentives are accentuating this, but I think that even without those it would grow an a decent rate.

One of the primary indicators I track is major/large companies that begin spending increased dollar amounts on various technologies. The one currently on my radar is Alcoa, which is an aluminum giant.

There have been quite a few climbing onto the solar bandwagon lately (solar sites are even spawning up near my home in oregon– one of the rainest states). This increased volume of solar supporters is a good sign for the future of the technology.

Heres an NY Times blog entry for some more details on the Alcoa solar arrays – http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/aluminum-maker-eyes-solar-industry/

This is a fantastic piece of work by NPR. It covers two interesting ways that Californian farmers are dealing with water shortages due to the increasing drought conditions there.

First, and this is something I think that we will be seeing a lot more of in the next 5 years, is farming using rainfall only. No irrigation. While this won’t work for all crops, we have bloated and mutated many crops that can in fact thrive on less water than we pump onto them. In this case, apples are being grown on only 30 inches of rainfall per year. Ask any apple farmer you know, this amount seems so small that you’d intuitively think you’d kill the tree. So how, exactly, did apple tress grow for the thousands of years before we irrigated them? Anyhow, the results are interesting and inspiring.

In areas where rainfall is so minimal that nothing could be commercially grown without irrigation, new technologies are cropping up to carefully measure and monitor the amount of water used and how moist the ground is. Believe it or not, most plants actually don’t like being drowned. They thrive in conditions of exact moisture levels. The farmer must understand their crop, and carefully manage the moisture levels. Doing so can save large volumes of water, and produce EVEN BETTER produce than by the old fashioned “super soaker” approach.

My brothers father in-law, Greg, has built himself a grease Jetta. I haven’t inspected it much, but I think its about a 1997 Jetta, and he put the aftermarket kit into the car himself. Total cost was around $750. He hasn’t really had many problems at all, but it is definitely a car for a tinkerer as opposed to someone who wants to “set it and forget it”. My criteria for a successful, mass use, grease mobile is one that any old lady or unskilled manual laborer (accounting nerd, etc) could run without having to get their clothes dirty or be late due to vehicular malfunction.

So, his car doesn’t quite fit that model, but for someone who is a tinkerer and wants to save some coin along the way, its perfect. He gets his oil from a few restaurants around the Portland (Oregon) area for free. He takes it home and processes about 10-15 gallons a week in his garage with his home setup. His take from the restaurants is about 50 gallons of oil per week, so he’s got a pretty good setup for storage from what I hear. In turn, with the remaindered 35+ gallons of oil, he takes it to Sun Break BioFuels in Canby (Oregon). This small company has high aspirations including making their own oil from seeds, as well as refining used commercial restaurant oil into biofuel for cars and trucks.

For those of you interested in kits, or in having someone do it for you, check out the listing at ModenConversions.com. They specialize in listings for biofuel conversion shops.

Keep an eye out, as i’m looking down the road a year or so and see a conversion in my future. As well as maybe a Lister generator. The bad-mutha of generators (Lister Generator at Lovecraft Biofuel — Portland)

• BioDiesel Conversion shops
  (tags: biodiesel biofuel greentech)
• Sun Break Biofuels, LLC
  (tags: biodiesel alternative-fuel greentech)

“Green” Technology was always something that my father was interested in. He was an inventor at heart, a tinkerer, and always had a farmers mentality. He was raised by a mother who was an environmental crusader and fought to preserve the Snake River from being dammed up and a father who taught him how to hunt and fish with respect for nature.

The talks i had with my father over the years sparked my interest in “what could be”, and “what is”. He always told me about the potential of hydrogen power for cars, and how it would be possible. He had a penchant for the “ultimate” solution, and ignored the bridge techologies which will most likely play a part in getting us there. He was very interested in biofuels, specifically biodiesel from various seeds. His background in biochemistry made me realize from a young age that he knew what he was talking about, and that these areas he talked about were quite plausable.

Now, he has passed away but I remember his interests. In fact, several of them have become my own. I drive a diesel Volkswagen Jetta. I intend to begin refining used vegetable oil from restaurants and running it through my car. I also will begin the process of documenting this, and many other interests, trends, and techologies on this site.

I originally had planned to have my father as a contributing member on this site, his view points and style of talk and writing were fascinating. Since he has passed away, i have found it very hard to adjust to not having him to talk with. This site will allow me to continue discussion with others, and track my observations related to green techology. In doing so, i can continue to remember those great conversations i held with my dad, and persue some of the things he and I enjoyed together.