Biodiesel

Currently the American way is to be on the go, constantly. On average Americans drive their cars 15,000 miles a year. That’s a little over 40 miles a day. Gas consumption is on the rise while our fossil fuels, our highest used fuel source, is diminishing. Realistically people will not stop driving. Our lives rely on our traveling to and from places via automobiles. The alternative that comes to mind that, some Americans use, is the use of Biodiesel to power their vehicles.

Ninety percent of our energy comes from fossil fuels. The crazy thing about fossil fuels is that they are from plants and animals that roamed this earth over 300 million years ago. What happened was animals and plants died and would sink to the bottom layer of the ground, ocean or swamp. Then due to high pressure and heat the dead animals and plants turn into a carbon rich fuel for us to use. We just have to dig down under the earth’s surface and collect the coal and oil. Experts say that the use of energy is increasing about 3% per year. This is a big downfall for fossil fuels because they will not always be there. It takes millions upon millions of years to create a fossil fuel and we will be running out soon.

The solution would be new, reliable, and renewable energy sources. A perfect example of this reliable and renewable energy would be biodiesel. Most biodiesel cars run off of used oils from local restaurants. Once the oil is put through a simple process you have access to, usually free, biodiesel. Also people love fried food so there will always be an endless supply of vegetable oil rather than our diminishing supply of fossil fuels.

In Carrabasset Valley, Maine, Sugarloaf resort is using their restaurants oils to run one of their shuttles. They created a biodiesel production plant in the summer of 2006. This was great for Sugarloaf because they are saving money on gas, saving money on waste oil disposal, and helping “keep Sugarloaf Beautiful.” If you ever find your self in the area take a trip on a tour of the biodiesel production plant. It is an eye opener to anyone. Just think by switching to biodiesel you can go from running your car off of plants a brontosaurus used to eat to the left over waste oil from the millions of Americans that feast on fried foods.

Links

Links:

-http://www.reed-reed.com/rvideo.asp

video from reed and reed

-http://www.reed-reed.com/5/5i.asp

links of all wind projects from reed and reed

-http://www.nrcm.org/issue_windpower.asp#indepth

wind power in maine

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Maine

-http://www.maine.gov/doc/mfs/windpower/summaries.shtml

-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/images/Mars%2520Hill530.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/004927.shtml&usg=__SvIdpWnP5tActQ7wuah0FAlRzoM=&h=330&w=530&sz=125&hl=en&start=1&sig2=90DDsvKkjn8K-W981AA0vw&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=d9MU4PcHj4EatM:&tbnh=82&tbnw=132&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwind%2Bturbines%2Bin%2Bmaine%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=bTrTS7eLMIGglAeV-7y-Dw

-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://alleghenysc.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/wind-turbines3.png&imgrefurl=http://alleghenysc.org/%3Fp%3D1435&usg=__bpyC_ItvScqORNkMKQhQzKUsD0I=&h=400&w=372&sz=272&hl=en&start=7&sig2=JcxSk1tu0yyuMge_zZEGhg&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=seYzCitWjIEkOM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=115&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwind%2Bturbines%2Bin%2Bmaine%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=bTrTS7eLMIGglAeV-7y-Dw

-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mainebiz.biz/lib/download.php%3Fuuid%3D0001-4298f02a-497dc5ba-dad0-87c41ecf%26top%3Dcred%26tsize%3D399&imgrefurl=http://www.mainebiz.biz/news44046.html&usg=__SOjTTKQKfb1vZvK2OOfNlz_b9gY=&h=414&w=399&sz=59&hl=en&start=8&sig2=GpGwfJ4oCRtS6RrbpQ28QA&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=8C2DNVqsNxAfpM:&tbnh=125&tbnw=120&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwind%2Bturbines%2Bin%2Bmaine%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=bTrTS7eLMIGglAeV-7y-Dw

-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.celsias.com/media/uploads/admin/hywind-floating-wind-turbine.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.celsias.com/article/floating-wind-turbines-set-sail/&usg=__WEssjAI_a5B2HnD8LCv8Olto2XQ=&h=450&w=450&sz=22&hl=en&start=13&sig2=EQAsCSnffpM95qx4puGARw&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=m3w7hzgmnlMHjM:&tbnh=127&tbnw=127&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwind%2Bturbines%2Bin%2Bmaine%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=bTrTS7eLMIGglAeV-7y-Dw

-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Public_Opinion_Wind_Farm_Redington_Mountain.jpg&imgrefurl=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Community_Wind_Farm&usg=__4FImDftJxZef1i3GHlCI8ZQEmfw=&h=307&w=720&sz=34&hl=en&start=9&sig2=bj26aHtnIWj1c9AvNLdFJA&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=0K8mCAD-k5ZkzM:&tbnh=60&tbnw=140&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkibby%2Bmountain%2Bwind%2Bfarm%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=oTvTS5D2D8Xflgfz6vHFDw

-http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/v98n4/Wind3_web.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.colby.edu/colby.mag/issues/current/features.php%3Fissueid%3D52%26articleid%3D1045%26print%3D1&usg=__BmgGh5gI0qy0esOI4dkEd5lfyAA=&h=334&w=500&sz=57&hl=en&start=10&sig2=CpJ_Cs6V2RA-3V2WdJaESw&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=_B1dYQNFaV3KZM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=130&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dkibby%2Bmountain%2Bwind%2Bfarm%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=oTvTS5D2D8Xflgfz6vHFDw

“Tweet Tweet”

No folks this isn’t the sound of your peeps chirping from your Easter basket. This is catchy title for this piece, about the popular website Twitter. I’m not here to talk about what Chad Ochocinco said, or what the Kardashians are doing this weekend. I’m here to inform all of you how tweeting can be very helpful for communities during disasters.

As most of you know Twitter is a website that allows members to tell the world what they think, what they are doing, ask a question, basically just about anything they want to write about. Its like this webpage Blogspot, Twitter allows member to write short blogs, no more than 140 characters, that can be updated at anytime of the day. Yes, live updates, like the little tracker at the bottom of ESPN. (Do you follow? If not go to this link and learn more, http://twitter.com/about.) One can come to the conclusion that Twitter can be used for more than just telling your friends, “Watching Idol with my Favs!”

Los Angeles Fire Department (LAFD) is a perfect example of using Twitter to help the public. LAFD updates it’s Twitter page with tweets about fires happening in Los Angeles. They inform people with the building location, number of responding firefighters, injuries and casualties. A typical tweet would be, “12126 Burbank BI* No ‘formal’ evacuations; Firefighters maintaining 500’ exclusion zone pending LAFD Hazmat arrival.” This would be useful for people who live in or near that building and people driving home, they would know to avoid that area. Which leads me to my next point, the integration of Twitter, traffic advisory radio, and your car’s GPS.

Just think you are rushing home one afternoon to catch your son’s baseball game. Unfortunately you hit traffic due to a large pile up. You miss his walk off homerun and he never lets you live it down. This could be avoided if we create a third party company that works along with twitter, traffic advisory radio and your car’s GPS provider. Someone could tweet about an accident, the company then would inform the traffic advisory radio, who could send information to your GPS, telling you to avoid I-95 due to that accident. This is just another way how technology could be/is helping us Americans on a daily basis