Biodiesel

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. - Every business looks for a trademark, and Matthew Danchanko has spent five years toiling to make quality the mark of his general contracting company in Johnstown. But since last week, the most discernible quality of Danchanko Inc. might be that its dump truck smells like french fries. With diesel costs climbing locally to nearly $4.90 a gallon, Danchanko began researching biodiesel and invested about $3,500 in the equipment and supplies he needed. Biodiesel is made through a process of straining used cooking oil - procured from restaurants for a small fee - that is mixed with select additives.

They are 14 young people, spending the summer traveling across the country with a mission: learning and raising awareness about environmental and American Indian issues. Their first stop: Philadelphia. The activists, aged 21 to 25, rolled up to the Fairmount Park Visitors Center adjacent to Love Park in Center City yesterday on a biodiesel-powered bus to spread the word about conservation. All are recipients of Morris K. Udall Scholarships, named for the late senator from Arizona, who was an advocate of environmentalism and the interests of American Indians.

High gas prices never bother Kipp Bachurski, who commutes about 50 miles every day. The trip on the turnpike and Blue Route from his home in Hatboro to his job in the Lower Merion School District costs him $2 daily in tolls, but less than 60 cents in fuel. Bachurski powers his 1998 Volkswagen Beetle with free vegetable oil recycled from Harriton High School's cafeteria. "I'm not buying gas. I'm burning cleaner fuel," Bachurski said with a smile. "I spend pennies a day on gas," he added.

At 12th and Vine Streets this fall, a gasoline station owner plans to start selling two fuels made from plants: ethanol and biodiesel. In New Jersey, a group of farmers and other investors is on the verge of buying land in Gloucester County to build an ethanol factory. And in Kensington, a research-scale facility is under construction that would make biodiesel from the grease of Philly cheesesteaks and other fatty victuals. Long a common practice in the Midwestern farm belt, the use of "biofuels" is now beginning in earnest on the East Coast, with a healthy nudge in the energy bill signed yesterday by President Bush.

Projects to charge electric cars, fuel vehicles that run on natural gas, and promote biofuels received a $7.9 million boost from the state Tuesday. Gov. Rendell announced that amount in state grants for 21 projects, which he said also would create 221 jobs and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 14.5 million pounds. Additional private funds to finish the projects boost their value to $30 million, he said. "These are exciting projects because they pave the way for consumers to adopt these new technologies," Rendell said at a news conference in Harrisburg.

The documentary "Fuel" probes sustainable energy, but with an approach that does not appear to be sustainable itself. One of its first talking heads is none other than dismissed green czar Van Jones, who recently claimed he didn't know that a petition he'd signed extolled our government's involvement in 9/11. Jones resigned anyway, thus demonstrating there is such a thing as Truther Consequences (I apologize for this obscure joke, as I realize anyone old enough to remember the origin of the pun has forgotten said origin)

The elementary school district here soon will be the first in the nation to run half of its school bus fleet on biodiesel, a cleaner-burning soybean-based fuel, state officials announced yesterday. Already, five of the district's 40 yellow buses are running on the blend of soy beans and fossil fuel, which its producers said releases one-third less carbon dioxide, particulate matter and other emissions than standard diesel fuel. An additional 15 buses will be outfitted by January.

Zach Carson is barefoot and covered in grease, wearing a tank top patched together with duct tape. A busted alternator and an old diesel filter sit among other debris in front of his parents' Main Line house. Parked at the curb is something that looks as if it might once have been a community shuttle bus. Only now, the seats have been ripped out, replaced by a faded beige couch, a rainbow-colored hammock, and four 55-gallon drums. An extra fuel-intake pipe juts from one side of the vehicle, which is painted a wild shade of green.

To Mayor Bill Pikolycky, Woodbine's old landfill has been a big headache. Closed for decades, the 45-acre property is covered with scruffy vegetation and needs an environmental cleanup that would cost the tiny Cape May County borough millions of dollars. The site began to look like an opportunity, however, after the mayor heard Andrew Greene's unusual proposal. Greene sees the landfill as a prime location for Garden State Ethanol, a $200 million biofuel plant that would use more than 100 bioreactor tanks to convert algae into ethanol and biodiesel oil. And Pikolycky sees the venture as a way to generate tax income and jobs and to have the site remediated at no expense to the borough.

West Philadelphia High School's team at the Tour de Sol car competition had jury-rigged a steel-tube and Plexiglas roof to its powerful biodiesel coupe, but it couldn't completely protect coach Simon Hauger and 11th grader Joseph Pak from the brutal elements. Water from a driving rain had seeped in along with the tension. Could the team meet its goal of winning the prestigious race for the second straight year? The two had been driving for hours Friday in the competition's most demanding event - a 200-mile course designed to measure fuel efficiency and vehicle emissions.

Charles Allison Jr. is CEO of CWBiofuels in New York and a member of the Partnership for a New American Economy The level of uncertainty and despair stemming from Washington makes it hard to be optimistic about our nation's future. Three years into the recession, jobs have still not come back, and to many, the future still looks bleak. But Congress can change that outlook. It can put America back on the road to job creation. And the necessary steps do not require large capital investment, new spending, or higher taxes.

Projects to charge electric cars, fuel vehicles that run on natural gas, and promote biofuels received a $7.9 million boost from the state Tuesday. Gov. Rendell announced that amount in state grants for 21 projects, which he said also would create 221 jobs and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 14.5 million pounds. Additional private funds to finish the projects boost their value to $30 million, he said. "These are exciting projects because they pave the way for consumers to adopt these new technologies," Rendell said at a news conference in Harrisburg.

The documentary "Fuel" probes sustainable energy, but with an approach that does not appear to be sustainable itself. One of its first talking heads is none other than dismissed green czar Van Jones, who recently claimed he didn't know that a petition he'd signed extolled our government's involvement in 9/11. Jones resigned anyway, thus demonstrating there is such a thing as Truther Consequences (I apologize for this obscure joke, as I realize anyone old enough to remember the origin of the pun has forgotten said origin)

To Mayor Bill Pikolycky, Woodbine's old landfill has been a big headache. Closed for decades, the 45-acre property is covered with scruffy vegetation and needs an environmental cleanup that would cost the tiny Cape May County borough millions of dollars. The site began to look like an opportunity, however, after the mayor heard Andrew Greene's unusual proposal. Greene sees the landfill as a prime location for Garden State Ethanol, a $200 million biofuel plant that would use more than 100 bioreactor tanks to convert algae into ethanol and biodiesel oil. And Pikolycky sees the venture as a way to generate tax income and jobs and to have the site remediated at no expense to the borough.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. - Every business looks for a trademark, and Matthew Danchanko has spent five years toiling to make quality the mark of his general contracting company in Johnstown. But since last week, the most discernible quality of Danchanko Inc. might be that its dump truck smells like french fries. With diesel costs climbing locally to nearly $4.90 a gallon, Danchanko began researching biodiesel and invested about $3,500 in the equipment and supplies he needed. Biodiesel is made through a process of straining used cooking oil - procured from restaurants for a small fee - that is mixed with select additives.

Starting in the new year, students across Chester County may notice a difference in what's coming out of the exhaust pipes of their school buses. The smoke will look a little cleaner, and the acrid diesel smell will be replaced by a more pleasant odor, like French fries. Beginning in 2008, buses for the Coatesville Area, Downingtown Area, Kennett Consolidated and West Chester Area School Districts and the Chester County Intermediate Unit will no longer run on diesel gas. Instead, it will be replaced by environmentally friendly biodiesel.

Of all the raw sources of experimental "green" energy, the stuff that comes into a tiny Kensington plant is perhaps the nastiest: a brown sludge clotted with food and other goo you really don't want to know about, laced with grease. A few treatment tanks and chemical processes later, out comes a strange brew, indeed. It is clear and smells slightly herbal. The latest biodiesel innovation - processed restaurant "trap grease" - keeps Cory Suter's white Volkswagen pickup running.

They are 14 young people, spending the summer traveling across the country with a mission: learning and raising awareness about environmental and American Indian issues. Their first stop: Philadelphia. The activists, aged 21 to 25, rolled up to the Fairmount Park Visitors Center adjacent to Love Park in Center City yesterday on a biodiesel-powered bus to spread the word about conservation. All are recipients of Morris K. Udall Scholarships, named for the late senator from Arizona, who was an advocate of environmentalism and the interests of American Indians.

TATTLE KNOWS Jimi Hendrix was a guitar god, but at a Saturday night auction at the Hard Rock Cafe in NYC, someone purchased a guitar owned by Hendrix for $480,000. A guitar. Fortunately the proceeds go to Music Rising and a good chunk of the raised dough will go to replace musical equipment lost to hurricanes Katrina and Rita. "It was the best sale we've ever done," said Darren Julien, president and CEO of Julien's Auctions, which ran the event. Music Rising was co-founded by The Edge, the U2 guitarist who donated his favorite instrument, a 1975 Gibson Les Paul that he has played for years.

High gas prices never bother Kipp Bachurski, who commutes about 50 miles every day. The trip on the turnpike and Blue Route from his home in Hatboro to his job in the Lower Merion School District costs him $2 daily in tolls, but less than 60 cents in fuel. Bachurski powers his 1998 Volkswagen Beetle with free vegetable oil recycled from Harriton High School's cafeteria. "I'm not buying gas. I'm burning cleaner fuel," Bachurski said with a smile. "I spend pennies a day on gas," he added.