Re: AFV Conference

I was wondering how you folks made out with the AFV conference today. Anyone make it over there? I attended the one in Syracuse as a guest speaker. I gave a talk on Bio, had my students make mini-batches as I talked, and made Biodiesel all afternoon. We had an air-cooled Deutz diesel on a stand, running, and my car there. It was pretty cool. Stayed there until 4pm. Later, Joe Rappa

(cross posted from http://forums.tdiclub.com/NonCGI/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=5;t=004174) Okay, guys, I'm sure that some of you have been anxiously awaiting news of this event. I will try to include as many details as possible and the result may get ugly since I'm tired, sunburned, and the day was very busy and very exciting. I will begin at the beginning, go on until I finish, and then stop. Nate and I met at our usual rendezvous point in Brockton this morning, and one hour and twenty minutes later we arrive at the Volpe National Transportation Center grounds in Cambridge. After convincing a couple of security guards to open the gates and let us in, we parked in the midst of some fuel cells, solar panels, Compressed Natural Gas vehicles (CNG), hybrids, electric vehicles, etc. Next we had to convince the organizer that we had told him that we would have vehicles to exhibit in addition to our pretty faces. It was quickly agreed that they had enough space for all and we quickly reshuffled our cars into the appropriate places. Then we went upstairs to a roundtable discussion attended by the fleet managers of all parties present at the event. This was quite interesting. We came in late, so we didn't get all the introductions, but when the floor opened up for general discussion, a Korean doctor (of some kind... as in PhD) began a discourse on how "idiotic" the idea of carrying around batteries in a car is. This was countered by Prof. Don Sadoway of MIT(a freshman professor, actually) who makes a career of inventing new battery technologies who was quite PO'd at the suggestion of our Korean friend. Skip a bit... Nate finally chimed in with a question for a guy who studies CNG vehicles as to the relative benefits of CNG versus biodiesel. This led to a lot of conjecture/slamming of biodiesel by various parties. First by the EPA rep. who claimed that there was insufficient study done on the fuel to make solid claims (I later realized that one of the papers in my hand cited an EPA study on the benefits of biodiesel... duh), then by (of all people!) a Cummins diesel rep. He was basically towing the same party line as VW: (paraphrased:)"We neither encourage nor discourage the use of biodiesel, however if engine or fuel system failures occur because of it, we won't pay for it." This is certainly understandable, but more on this later. One of the other interesting things that came of our Cummins rep.'s mouth was that Sprague Energy has thousands of gallons of (am I coining a term here?) Very Low Sulfur Diesel, on the order of 50ppm sitting up in Portland, ME. Two thoughts occurred to me on this statement: 1. our trips to Maine for biodiesel just go longer, and 2. Can't we figure out a way to get this stuff in Boston. Hmm... this situation sounds familiar. In any case, if someone wants to jump on this and fly with it, be my guest. It's entirely possible that there are pumps selling this stuff in Boston, and we just don't know about it. Okay, then Nate and I spoke briefly with a guy representing [url=http://www.zipcar.com]ZipCar[/url], and then with a guy from [url=http://www.artisticlicensenetwork.com/]Artistic License[/url], who it seems may be able to help me fit my fuel tank with a heater for year round B100 usage. Then the keynote address was given by Dean Kamen of Segway HT aka Ginger fame. He gave his whole talk while zooming around the stage on this thing. It was quite tiresome after the first 5 minutes. But he's doing some cool stuff still... and after hearing him talk about it, the Segway makes a lot more sense to me now than it ever did before. Then onto the AFV exposition. Out to the parking lot we met up with BeetleGo and the party began. We were quickly inundated with high school students, teachers, and various industry folk. Most of the day is a blur to me. One thing that I did notice is that many of the kids were there from Vocational-Technical schools, and with our hoods raised they could really relate to what we were showing them as opposed to many of the exotic solutions that were displayed. Although I think the biggest draw was the Cummins 8.3L Turbo-charged CNG engine sitting on a trailer. Every few minutes it would rev up and drown out the conversation in the rest of the place. Most of the people with whom we spoke were quite receptive to the idea of biodiesel and were appalled that many gallons of biodiesel were located a few miles away in Chelsea, but not available within 300 miles of Boston apart from Solar Market. The Korean doctor did show up and attempted to argue that Korean fisherman have been using biodiesel for at least 50 years. What he was actually saying was that they use fish oil in their diesel engines. Semantics, fish oil=bio diesel, but not biodiesel. Anyway... Late in the day I got the chance to get an in-depth tour of an 8.3L Cummins CNG engine. Pretty interesting piece of equipment. What's really interesting is that CNG essentially produces the opposed emissions at diesel: more CO2, much more CO, less particulates, less NOx, less unburned hydrocarbons. Anyway, the Cummins guys' claims were that they can't get behind biodiesel because there is no standard for it. They can't be responsible for replacing fuel pumps that get chewed up by bad fuel. I agreed with him, and told him that World Energy's fuel meets ASTM standards. For whatever reason that wasn't good enough. So we agreed to disagree on this point. I did tell him that as soon as WE's biodiesel destroys my fuel pump that I would eat my shoe. I don't expect to have to eat my shoe any time soon... All in all, I believe we had a really positive effect. The director of the event who wasn't even expecting us (apparently) complemented us at the end and said he was glad that we came because we represented one AFV niche that would otherwise have gone unknown at the event. I guess they had were expecting to have WE there, but maybe they were too busy setting up our pump? I fully expect that Nate and I will be flooded with email over the next couple of days, and I hope to see many new friends and supporters of our petition and BABI forum. Pictures will follow soon. I hope Nate and Mark can fill in some of the missing pieces... Edited by - MITBeta on 04/11/2002 22:56:30

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All in all, I believe we had a really positive effect. The director of the event who wasn't even expecting us (apparently) complemented us at the end and said he was glad that we came because we represented one AFV niche that would otherwise have gone unknown at the event. I guess they had were expecting to have WE there, but maybe they were too busy setting up our pump?

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Phil, Nate and Mark, GREAT JOB for showing up and showing off!!...Boy, it sounds like there is no common ground for any of these guys to operate on which is too bad. I must say, it's a darn good thing you guys made the effort to be there. Otherwise, the most viable and available AFV would have gone unnoticed which would be a HUGE mistake. Again, I know we all appreciate the time you took out of your day to be there and explain the BABI proposal. Job well done! _____________________ itchin' for the good stuff !