Bicycle power station made by HSU Campus Center for Appropriate Technology.
zero pollution, it runs on excess college student energy. simple to build, this 12 volt power plant uses alternators from automobiles and exercise bicycles... it stores electricity in standard car batteries.
article for Lumberjack Newspaper at Humboldt State University.
E85 Ethanol fuel-an alternative to war with Iraq by Greg Vanderlaan
Grown in America by Americans, E85 reduces our dependence on foreign oil. It's designed to be a fuel for automobiles and trucks. E85 is 85% Ethanol and 15% gasoline and is made from corn but it can be made from rice, potatoes, wheat, sugar cane or even prunes. It's currently sold in the midwestern United States at prices equivalent to those for mid-grade unleaded gasoline.
Automobiles using E85 fuel are available from Ford, Chrysler, GM and many foreign car makers. Called flexible fuel vehicles, they can run on any mixture of ethanol/gasoline. They cost the same as gasoline only vehicles. E85 is not yet available in California but it will be soon. The National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition. www.e85fuel.com announced on Feb 13, 2003 that it has issued a grant award of $46,300 to the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and InterState Oil Company to develop an E85 fueling facility in the Sacramento, California area. The fueling facility, owned and operated by InterState, will be used to fuel 113 CDFA fleet vehicles capable of using this alternative fuel.
Here in Eureka and Arcata the stations sell gasohol which is a mixture of 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Standard automobiles may be modified to run on E85. The main modification is to the computer system that runs the car. No modifications to the actual engine are needed.
E85 is nontoxic. In the event of a traffic accident during the transport of the fuel from the refinery to the gas station, no elaborate cleanup is needed. Since the fuel is grown here in the continental United States, the transportation requirements are minimal. There would be no need to use oil tankers like the EXXON-VALDEZ. Boats would be eliminated entirely from the delivery system. The www.iowacorn.org website has maps showing exactly where to go to get a tankfull. Most of the stations are in Minnesota (60). There are 150 stations nationwide. The closest one is in Provo, Utah.
Auto manufacturers have been making ethanol using vehicles for a very long time. In the 1880s, Henry Ford built the quadricycle which ran on ethanol. Model Ts had a carburetor adjustment to switch between Gasoline and Ethanol. Air pollution would be reduced by switching to ethanol. Emissions of hydrocarbons and benzene are less than gasoline. Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere but is reabsorbed by the plants that grow the fuel. One of the reasons ethanol is so popular in the midwest is its use in farm machinery. The machines that are used to make the fuel use the fuel. A byproduct of fuel manufacturing is distillers dried grain which is used for hog and cattle feed.
The country of Brazil has more than 4 million ethanol vehicles on the road. The Brazilians make their fuel from sugar cane. The government of Brazil put a lot of effort into converting their cars because they could not afford to have a lot of money leaving their country.
The US Army has been studying the use of alternate fuel vehicles and has concluded that the main problem is lack of availability of the fuel. The Vehicles themselves are available from the GSA at no extra cost, but there are very few stations that pump E85 near Army bases. The performance in Army vehicles is good. Soldiers need no extra training to use the fuel. Storage and cleanup costs are better than gasoline. The U.S. Postal service has been running its vehicles on ethanol since 1998 in Illinois.
Iraq's economy is based on the oil business. 95% of the money they get from other countries is from the sale of oil. They are having difficulty paying for the wars they had with Iran and the USA during the 1990s. Using ethanol would keep the money we spend for fuel in America. Iraq would simply not have money to spend on weapons if we stopped buying oil.
Not everyone feels that E85 is a viable solution to our fuel problems. During a speech at Humboldt State University, Dr. Michael Moore expressed the opinion that there is simply not enough corn to fuel all of our cars. It would take cutting down half of the Amazon rainforest to have enough biomass to solve our need for energy. He is a former California government official working in energy policy and currently the chief economist of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He also said that of all the alternative energy sources, biomass is the most attractive. Biomass is a term that refers to all energy sources that come from growing plants. Burning wood in a fireplace, biodiesel fuel from hemp, methanol from wasted sawdust and fermenting grain are all examples of biomass energy. A film of his speech is available at Instructional Media Services. (He is a different Michael Moore... Dr. Moore was a government advisor on energy policy for california)
re-reading this years later I still think the same way... Gee, that war in Iraq turned out to be a disaster and it drove up the price of gasoline... My Dad bought me some stock in Pacific Ethanol as a graduation gift and I really think they have a great Idea... Located in the central valley of California, they use rice to make fuel and sell the waste for cattle feed...
http://www.pacificethanol.net/
side view of zero pollution 12 volt power station.
KID POWER. converts excess human energy into electricity. not only is it eco-friendly but it tires out the kids... This device powered the public address system used by the bands at the Sustainable Living Art and Music Festival. Earthday...
Humboldt Calypso Band and college students dancing. recycled oil barrels are used to make the steel drums...
dancing to the sounds of WOMAMA a student band blending calypso with electric guitars and a balophone. (wooden xylophone/,marimba style instrument)
They have Many singers... positive lyrics... worldbeat...
just another wonderful day on California's North Coast... Arcata... Humboldt Nation.