TALK: The Green Mountain College Blog

One of the main reasons I brought Vercedes into my life was to make the journey that this picture gives you a glimpse of. In May of last year I found a listing for this diesel beauty on Greasecar's website (one of the best resources for finding biofuel friendly vehicles and people I've come across) and went on to buy it from a wonderful family in Cambridge, NY.

It was my hope to convert her to run on straight vegetable oil (SVO) before the summer's pilgrimmage, but time and money proved uncooperative. Even so, I was able to keep over 3,000lbs of carbon-dioxide, not to mention an inspiring amount of particulate matter and sulfer-dioxide--out of the atmosphere with the biodiesel I found along the 12,000 mile summer's voyage.

The trip ended up adding three credits to my transcripts as I utilized it as an opportunity to assess the stage of development our country's biofuels industry has reached in terms of accessibility, affordability, and geographic range. Would it be possible to go across the country on a strictly biofuel diet? The answer I would come across was 'yes', if you are willing to a.) consider biofuel blends (such as B20: 20% biodiesel, 80% petrol-diesel) a strictly biofuel diet; or b.) have the ability to carry with you at least twenty or so gallons of biodiesel to sustain you from one pump to another.

It's assuredly feasible if you have a kit that will allow you to run on SVO--something that I wasn't able to make happen until once I was back in Vermont in August.

My personal experience was that even with 8-10 gallons of back-up biodiesel stored in fuel drums in my trunk I couldn't quite make it from point A to point B without a little petrol. Bear in mind that this was also a result of the fact that I couldn't make certain detours because of the family and work-related time constraints I faced. When I make a follow-up trip--and you can be sure I will; there's just too much America out there to be seen in one go--I am confident that with a little more time flexibility and my veggie kit, I can make an environmentally benign series of memories.

For those of you interested in such things, I opted for a Greasecar kit after doing some asking and shopping around. Anyone interested in hooking their car up with a veggie facial please feel free to get in touch with me. I'll do most anything within my abilities to help get another greasey diesel on the road.

Here's one of my lame self in front of what was decidely my favorite segment of the trip. A little anecdotal point of interest: I woke up one day at my site within Gros Ventre Campground in the national park and on my way to wash the morning's dishes saw a familiar looking car. My friend Keith Beveridge who had just graduated from GMC had been camping with his wife and her family after driving across the country in their own biodiesel/SVO powered Jetta--something they do on an almost annual basis apparantly. Lovely, wonderful folks.

When I went about planning my route across the country I was impressed by the picture painted by the National Biodiesl Board's retailer map which had America's biodiesel retail pumps laid out in a manner that made me believe a petrol-free trip would be much easier than it ended up being. While there are far more locations pumping biofuels than I would have ever imagined in the US, many of the ones listed were only pumping B2 (a petrol fuel containing only 2% biodiesel)--which don't get me wrong is better than nothing, but still (such as our very own Vermont Biofuels Association) where you can get a more accurate up-to-date feels vastly inadequate. Many states have formed their own biofuels organizations Also, you combustion engine users, bear in mind that though I was focused on biodiesel out of my personal preferences, there is an even more ample supply of ethanol as you traverse America's longitudes.

Vercedes, now with over a quarter-million miles credited to her lifetime, is still going strong. She took me to an Ultimate (Frisbee) tournament at East Stroudsburg and then to see my family and friends back in New Jersey in the last few weeks. That's about 1,500 miles on SVO with only one or two gallons of B10 being burned. I just love this. I can't wait to such stories aren't the exception in private transportation--in the mean time though, the growth of sustainable public transportation systems remains job one.