Climate Cities

Central Dark

New York City dims skyscraper lights to help save birds Love cities? Love birds? Wish the former would stop killing the latter? Audubon wants to help. Its “Lights Out New York” effort is encouraging Big Apple building owners to turn lights down or off above the 40th floor, from midnight to daylight, during spring and […]

Off by a Mileage

EPA to revise tests of new cars’ gas mileage The U.S. EPA has announced plans to overhaul its current method for estimating the fuel economy of new automobiles — the miles-per-gallon numbers stuck on the windows of every new car. The method now in use has changed little since the mid-1970s, even though driving conditions […]

Umbra on speed limits

Dear Umbra, I was babbling about the ’70s energy crisis, gas rationing, and the nationwide 55 mile-per-hour speed limit at work the other day, and found myself explaining to a group of younger people how you save gas if you drive slower. They had never heard such a thing! Could you refresh my memory about […]

What New Orleans could look like the second time around

I heard that George Bush told New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin the city could be remade into “a shining example for the whole world.” If Bush did say that, it surely wasn’t an environmentally sound renaissance he had in mind. But that is precisely what is needed. Call it Eco New Orleans. It should encompass […]

Feline Groovy

German inventor denies using dead cats to make biodiesel German inventor Christian Koch says he’s patented a way to convert trash into eco-friendly, high-quality biodiesel fuel that costs one-fifth the going price of diesel in his home country. To produce the alternative fuel, Koch claims he uses waste including paper, textiles, and plastics — but […]

Replacing fossil fuels with biodiesel may do more harm than good

I remember when real environmentalists drove smoking VW vans with bumper stickers that said stuff like, "You can't call yourself an environmentalist if you eat meat." They didn't get the best gas mileage, but hey, you could do worse. They were replaced by the forest-green Subaru Outback (Eddy Bower edition if you were really cool), seen by the dozens in any REI parking lot. These are presently being eclipsed by the ubiquitous Prius. But, there is stiff competition from the diesel Jetta replete with biodiesel stickers all over the butt end.

As we all know by now, biodiesel can be made out of a lot of things:

Soybeans: 50 gallons per acre
Rapeseed: 150 gallons per acre
Jatropha: 175 gallons per acre
Palm oil: 650 gallons per acre

To limit the impact on the planet, maybe we should start pressuring our biodiesel distributors to sell fuel made only from palm oil? According to the World Wildlife Fund, we would also need to demand that it be made out of palm oil grown only on degraded, non-forested land:

Dispatches from a student-run clean-car campaign

The Road to Detroit campaign is run by 11 student organizers from around the U.S., one big, beautiful biodiesel and veggie-oil bus, and many friends and allies. Road to Detroit is a campaign of Energy Action, a student and youth clean-energy and global-warming coalition. Friday, 19 Aug 2005 DETROIT, Mich. We know you know about […]

Miser Permanente

Americans get creative at saving gas as price per gallon soars Ever since dinosaurs walked the earth, died, and decayed under high subterranean pressures to become the fossil fuels we so depend upon today, Americans have carried on a brontosauric love affair with gasoline. But with prices climbing toward $3 a gallon, that may change. […]

Umbra on biodiesel vs. straight veggie oil

Dear Umbra, I have the opportunity to convert a 1979 non-turbo Mercedes into a non-diesel. The question I have is: to which should I switch, biodiesel or vegetable oil? I can’t seem to find out which one is best, just that these two are better than any petroleum-based fuels, which we already know (thanks for […]

Rob Elam, biodiesel buff, answers questions

Rob Elam. What work do you do? I’m a cofounder of Propel Fuels, a biodiesel services and distribution firm. Biodiesel is a vegetable-oil based fuel for diesel engines. Using it significantly reduces greenhouse-gas and particulate-matter emissions. What does your organization do? Our mission is simple: fill tanks with biodiesel. We’re approaching this in three ways: […]