BrevardBioDiesel Blog

The Orlando Sentinel reports that Orlando based Xenerga is planning on growing a patented version of the Jatropha plant in Florida for use as a biodiesel feedstock. A 5000 acre plot in Lake Wales, FL will grow the special version of this high oil yield crop. At 1600 gallons of oil per acre per harvest, that's enough oil to supply one or two of Xenerga's 5 MMgy refineries.

The Jatropha oil and resulting biodiesel seems to have cold weather properties that are somewhat better than Palm Oil, but worse than Soybean Oil.

(Also mentioned are new plants in Groveland and Sanford from Silver Bullet Energy and Southeast Biodiesel respectively.)

This past weekend Brevard Biodiesel was present at the Step It Up 2007 event at the Eau Gallie Farmer's Market and made our 3rd appearance at FIT's 3rd Annual Solar Music Fair.

We'll be back at the Eau Gallie Farmer's Market on 21 April for an Earth Day event.

Reports and Pictures:

Report/Pics from 15 April Solar Music Fair

Report/Pics from 14 April Eau Gallie Farmer's market

Pictures of Brevard Biodiesel at Eau Gallie Farmer's Market on 14 April:

Above photos courtesy of Bobbie Richardson

The IRS has issued a ruling allowing big oil companies that dump some vegetable oil into their conventional refining process to then claim credit for biodiesel blending tax credits under the thermal de-polymerization (TDP ) section of the Energy Policy Act.

Brevard Biodiesel will take part in these upcoming events in April here in Brevard County Florida. Come on by and chat about biodiesel!

• Sat April 14 8am-1pm Earth Days at Old Eau Gallie Farmer's Market
• Sun April 15 10am-4pm Tenative - Florida Institute of Technology Solar Music Fair
• Sat April 21 8am-1pm Earth Days at Old Eau Gallie Farmer's Market

Update:
Each of the above events are listed as Step it Up 2007 Events here and here.

The Orlando Utilities Commission is sponsoring a special screening of the acclaimed documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car" at the University of Central Florida in Orlando FL on Monday April 16th from 6pm to 9pm in Communications 101.

Special events:

• 3pm-6pm prior to showing, Ride 'n Drive in production electric vehicles
• Appearance, Q&A with Chelsea Sexton, star of film and executive director of Plug In America.
• Appearance, Q&A with director, Chris Paine

Earthrace, the biodiesel powered trimaran in the midst of a record breaking circumnavigation attempt, is in San Diego (track) at the moment. Biodiesel fuel there is sponsered by Imperium Renewables.

On March 18th, Earthrace was involved in a collision with a local fishing boat off the coast of Guatemala. One fisherman was killed, and two hurt with one requiring surgery after life saving treatment on board Earthrace (using supplies from an earlier stop in Charleston SC). The crew was allowed to leave after a 10-day say in Guatemala with a judge ruling the collision was an accident.

The Ground Crew blog and Captain's blog document their thoughts and actions during this turbulent time, and capture the grace of the Guatemalan people and their colonial city Antigua. Video blog of collision aftermath.
Our best wishes to those involved on both vessels, and their family members. Examples of the words from Captain Bethune:

"These people are poor, but there’s also a great sense of community and family spirit amongst them."

"There’s a couple of other things I’m learning about the people here. Firstly, they are incredibly happy. It doesn’t matter who you meet here or what they are doing, they will always have a smile on their face. And secondly, they are extremely courteous. While at the Navy base I was always impressed at how polite everyone was, but I’d assumed it was part of the military discipline. It seems this politeness carries on all over the place."

Sail on Earthrace, Sail on “Pajarito”.

Our February 2007 post about Earthrace
Our September 2006 post about Earthrace