BrevardBioDiesel Blog

Interesting post by Terry McGleish over at Permaculture.com about turning your left-over glycerine into bars of soap. Note the mention of "Be sure not to breathe the fumes." during the soap making. That's going to be because of the likely hood of leftover Methanol (or Ethanol) in the material. If you are considering doing this - look around for more details on why this happens, including:

• Glycerine Soap Making
• Glycerine: Journey to Forever

Intelifuel, out of Quito Ecuador, reuses drums and other parts to offer a waste oil collection service across the country. They even are getting the Ecuadorian armed forces to provide waste vegetable oil. See why they do what they do, and find out how you might be able to help:

Florida Today Help columnist Dave Larimer discovers a Melbourne couple that have started Green Oil Recyclers and offer to pick up used cooking oil - presumably in the Brevard County FL area.

Scott and Lisa Stanley recently have started Green Oil Recyclers, a company that collects used cooking oil and sells it to larger firms to make biodiesel fuel and other products.

The good news is: they will accept small amounts of oil from consumers.

"Five gallons to a thousand gallons, quantities don't matter," Scott Stanley said.

...

He said he will pick up small portions of used oil from residences if homeowners call him at 321-403-1771.

He will not charge for the house call and at the same time, will not pay for the used oil.

The documentary movie 'GasHole' will be shown during the First Thursday meeting of SCPA on February 3rd 2010 starting at 7pm in the Henegar Center in Historic Downtown Melbourne.

A new documentary film about the history of oil prices and the future of alternative fuels.

The film, narrated by Peter Gallagher, features interviews with a wide range of viewpoints from US Department of Energy Officials, Congressional leaders both Democrat and Republican, Alternative Fuel Producers, Alternative Fuel Consumers (such as actor Joshua Jackson), Professors of Economics and Psychology and more...

Directed by Jeremy Wagener & Scott D. Roberts, the film takes a wide, yet detailed examination of our dependence on foreign supplies of Oil.

What are the causes that led from America turning from a leading exporter of oil to the world's largest importer? What are the economic and sociological forces that have contributed to that change and impede its solution?

The film examines many different potential solutions to our oil dependence. Starting with claims of buried technology that dramatically improves gas mileage, to navigating bureaucratic governmental roadblocks, to evaluating different alternative fuels that are technologically available now, to questioning the American Consumer's reluctance to embrace alternatives.

If you buy gas, you should see this movie!

Florida Today reports on experiments by University of Florida researchers and South Florida's Vecenergy to find genetic variations in Jatropha suitable for oil production by flying samples in the International Space Station.

The experiments study cell cultures such as these:

"We are curious to learn what genes will be activated. Maybe some of those genes could help us develop new plants," Wagner Vendrame, University of Florida associate professor of horticulture, said. "They will get a tremendous variation. We know we are going to see something. We just don't know what."