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Fuel Movie Review

Post image for Fuel Movie Review

by Jeff on July 7, 2010

Recently, I watched the movie Fuel.  I have been wanting to do more reviews on the website (of both books and movies related to topics discussed on the blog) and I didn’t really know where to start.  I have seen quite a few (movies & books) that I thought would be interesting to review and figured this would be a nice start.  I’ve got a couple other books to review as soon as I read them, and hopefully I can get some more movies as well.  Anyways, On to the review.

Fuel:

This movie started out with the story of the filmmaker, Josh Tickell when he was in college.  He’s got quite an interesting story, he grew up in Louisana and went to college, found himself in Europe during for his studies.  He worked on an organic farm that was using biodiesel in the tractors, and for the longest time, he didn’t know it.  He was completely astounded by the fact that he was growing the fuel for his trucks he was using to do farm work on the farm he was working on.  When he got back to the states, he took got his student loan money, dropped out of school, bought a diesel winnebago and created  the veggie mobile.  He powered the veggie mobile with used fryer grease he collects while driving the veggie mobile across the country.  He wrote a book about it, spoke all over the country about it, and really felt like he was making a difference.

Once he explains his backstory, he goes into some parts about where oil comes from, how it’s produced and refined and what’s done with it.  I wasn’t terribly interested in this part because I know most of it already, but will share it with you.  They boil the crude oil, and collect at different levels and it makes different types of fuel: gas, diesel, kerosene, jet fuel, asphalt, plastic and more.  Here, he takes a his turn to swing at the previous presidential administration, saying they were in bed with the oil companies and blamed the military-industrial complex for the war in Iraq.  While I feel that this is part of the puzzle, I wished he could have mentioned it briefly and moved on, but he didn’t.

After a while, biodiesel started gaining huge momentum and was being used in schools, truck stops and in gas stations across the country.  He was pretty excited because he felt like he was really making a difference in the world and changing people habits.  Then in 2007/2008, someone came out with a report that renewable fuels could be blamed for the deaths of people in rural africa.  This brought around another round of things that biodiesel was tied into.  He went into the farm system and the extremely high subsidies that the farmers get for production of commodity crops.  These subsidies result in the US producing a higher amount of food at a lower cost than it costs for farmers around the world to produce the same crops, so they exit the market.  These low production costs were brought to you by fuel, of course.  So the premise is that if gas goes up by 25%, so would the cost of food.  Unfortunately, this would stop crops from being distributed on the world market, and could lead to starvation because the local farmers have stopped production.

Just like that, all the progress was made from 2001-2007 evaporated.  Josh was crushed, and went back to work promoting biodiesel.  This is where it got interesting to me, because he started talking with all the new production biodiesel companies and the different places they could get their fuels and how they were developing new biodiesel from alge.  It was really interesting to hear a lot of old oil men talking about the benefits of biodiesel and how great it it could be if it could be grown from alge.  They talked about putting the alge next to power plants and using the c02 emissions from the power plant and the sun to grow the alge.

Most Important Points:

  1. The diesel engine was invented to run on peanut oil
  2. Most of the ships, trains, buses and other heavy equipment run on diesel fuel
  3. To be truly sustainable, you need to make use of as much waste as possible
  4. Oil/Fuel is used or needed for just about everything that you use, touch or do.

Should you watch this?  I think so.  I think he distilled a lot of information in a very easy to digest and interesting way.  I’m excited to see what he comes up with next.  The one downfall of this movie (though completely out of the authors control) was that it wasn’t up to date.  This sounds rather odd to say as I think it was released in 2008, but so much has happened since then, and it would be nice to hear his take on what’s going on currently.

If you’ve seen it, what do you think?

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Saving Money with Alternative Fuels

by Jeff on June 9, 2010

Last week, I talked about how to save some money on fuel costs and do better by the environment by making slight modifications to your driving habits.  This article is sort of related to the first.  If you’re interested, you can find the first article here

Oil Fueled Lamp

Credit: G.D. Abir, Flickr

At this writing, it’s difficult to get away from energy, more specifically, oil.  As of late, there has been the unforgettable and despicable oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the suspicious absence of what I call the “summer spike” in gas prices.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to see that gas prices stayed down during memorial day, but despite the popularity of gas, there are other fuels out there.  These “alternative fuels” are monitored by the EPA just like gasoline, and in most cases are more sustainable, cheaper and better for the environment.  Today I’ll go over the more popular ones and how you can begin using them.

Ethanol

Ethanol is made from starch, sugar or cellulose, and is made similar to alcohol.  It is first fermented, then processed through a still (just like grain alcohol).  It is typically higher octane than gas, and it also burns cleaner.  Ethanol does contain less energy per unit than gasoline does, so you will most likely see a decrease in your fuel economy.  The EPA estimates this decrease to be about 20-30%.   The best part about ethanol is that it’s already used in many cars.  ”Gasahol” is sold in places (not where I’m from) but is a mixture of 10% ethanol, 90% gasoline, and is sometimes known as E-10.  Along with E-10, you can purchase E-85 and Vehicles at gas stations nation-wide, although there are reports that it’s easier to find E-85 and E-85 vehicles (sometimes called “flex-fuel”) in the midwest than other parts of the country.

Benefits of Ethanol: Grown (typically from corn) in the United States, so there is no geo-political concerns with the fuel, lower air pollution, resistant to engine  knocking, little or no cost difference.

Drawbacks of Ethanol: Only for flex-fuel vehicles, lower miles per gallon.

In my area, E-85 is about 20-30 cents cheaper per gallon than gas.  This could potentially save you $3,600 per year if you drive the average of 12,000 miles.   To find out if your vehicle can use E-85, consult your manual or your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) or contact your dealer.

List of E-85 Vehicles for 2010

Biodiesel

Biodiesel is a type of diesel made from vegetable oil, animal fats or used fryer grease.  Currently, there is a lot of research being done with this fuel, as some have gotten usable oils from algae.  It is biodegradable, perfectly safe, and produces less emissions than a diesel engine using conventional diesel fuel.  Biodiesel is nice because it can be used pure (B-100) or in any blend.  Most common blends are B-2 (2% biodeisel), B-5, and B-20.   Along with being able to blend with conventional diesel, biodiesel requires few modifications to a diesel engine to use.  Many auto manufactures will still extend the warranty of the car with biodeisel blends up to B-5 as well.

Advantages of Biodiesel: Domestically produced (sometimes from things that would be thrown out), easily used in most diesel engines, non toxic, biodegradable, safe to handle.

Disadvantage of Biodiesel: Slightly lower power output (2% when using B-20), warranties invalidated with blends above B-5, can gel at low temperatures, slightly higher NOx (Nitrous Oxide) emissions.

Natural Gas

Natural gas is one of the cleanest burning fuels on the market, and is almost all 87% domestically produced.  Natural gas was typically used for large fleets of vehicles, although is not relatively available for consumers, with the exception of the Honda Civic GX.  Along with difficulty finding a Natural gas car, fueling is also difficult, leading some manufacturers to put dual fuel systems in the vehicles, allowing for a user to get a gas or diesel engine that can run on natural gas if it is available.

Advantages of Natural Gas: Less Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions, less smog inducing particulates, typically cheaper than gasoline.

Disadvantages of Natural Gas: Difficult to purchase a vehicle for, difficult to find fuel, less miles on a tank (due to size constraints)

Propane

Propane is similar to natural gas.  It is stored in tanks and can be used in vehicles along side gas or diesel.  Unfortunately, no vehicles have been produced to run on Propane since the 2004 model year, but an engine conversion from diesel or gasoline is possible.

Hydrogen

There has been many discussions on the future of vehicle fuel, and it seems like hydrogen is emerging as the front runner.  Hydrogen is clean burning, and if the fuel is used in a fuel cell, there are no emissions, but if it is used in an internal combustion engine, there are NOx emissions.  Hydrogen is also produced domestically, removing energy fears from the process.  Unfortunately, Hydrogen powered vehicles are too expensive for most consumers to afford, and there are very few fueling stations in the United States (Of the few that do exist, most are in California).  This seems to me like a future technology.

What about electric cars, you ask?  Good question.  I’m currently researching, and will post an article on them when finished (I left them out of here because there are a few coming to market, such as the chevy volt and the nissan leaf)

So, if you were an average consumer who is looking for a fuel other than your current one, what are your best options? In my opinion, you’d be best served with ethanol or biodiesel, depending on your current vehicle.  Biodiesel is easy to set up and get going, and you can even produce it yourself if you like.  That being said, I’m betting few of you have diesel vehicles, as there are not many diesel vehicles available (other than trucks) in the US.  So, your best choice would probably be ethanol fuel for your current vehicle, or if you are considering upgrading soon, look into ethanol or a gas hybrid.   Me? I’ve currently got a gas powered vehicle, but am hoping to get a diesel vehicle in the future and fuel it with biodiesel.



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