Emily Johnson of Minnetonka, Minn., a recent graduate of Hopkins High School, has been awarded first place in the 2009 Minnesota Clean Air Choice Scholarship, presented by the Minnesota Soybean Growers Association and the American Lung Association in Minnesota. Johnson received $1,000 for her winning essay, “The Benefits of the Use of Biodiesel.”
All four winning essays can be viewed at www.CleanAirChoice.org.
These students are writing for biodiesel because it will give us cleaner air to breath, not because it might be 50 cents cheaper per gallon. When you grow the plants, you get rid of CO2.
Photo from: http://www.biodiesellogic.com/Web%20Page/BDL-275-PPS%20Photo%20Gallery.htm
Rome-Floyd County Environmental Director Eric Lindberg is spearheading the program, which would require an estimated $30,000 for the processor and another $12,800 for other equipment and supplies. Plans are to give one-gallon containers to interested residents to fill with used oil, and establish drop-off racks at four locations where full containers can be traded for empty ones. The oil would be converted to fuel with a Biodiesel Logic processor, which is designed to be used with minimum training.
Here’s smart city not willing to throw away perfectly good oil, when so many city vehicles can burn biodiesel. If a city does not do this, they are wasting energy, don’t you agree?
The Chinese state is expected to encourage a transition towards biodiesel in larger cities according to a senior academic. Min Enze, of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering has forecast that vehicles in large cities, such as Beijing, Guangzhou and Shanghai, will be B5 biodiesel compatible by next year. Next year is expected to see the acceptance of a national standard of B5 biodiesel.
I hope the USA will not fall behind China in the conversion to biodiesel. As we could see from the Olympics, the air in big cities of China is pretty bad, and they know it. B5 by next year? We’ll see.
Jatropha is one of the promising non-food feedstocks for biodiesel. However, the tropical plant is not well-suited for the cooler climes of some parts of the U.S. But Biomass Magazine reports that an American company is working on a variety of jatropha that could grow in colder areas:
Don’t ever forget the power of genetic manipulation and hybrids, we could be growing biodiesel in some very unlikely places, this is just the start of a new and wonderful biodiesel industry.