The last day, only half a day, was characterized by the most substantive presentations of the conference. It began with a rough start, Gunnar and I were trying to recover from the night before as we wandered down to the cafeteria. Breakfast was good and we found our seats at the first presentation of the day. It was a talk by Maria “girl Mark” Alovert on a variety of unconnected technologies she is currently promoting, including the burning of glycerin for energy, ethanol based biodiesel, and acid esterificaiton. Her talk was fast-paced and informative. For the next talk I listened to Jason Burrough of DieselGreen …
Today was another full day of talks. I started out the day learning about options for Glycerol from a young bunch of students from Dickinson College followed by waste oil filtration and solar heating. Lunch is a nice time to think about what you have seen and discuss new ideas with other conference goers. It is amazing the range of people here, some are super-activists looking to change the entire landscape of fuels in America while others are staunch business people exploring the potential profit to made in the biodiesel industries. We had breakout sessions after lunch which were topic based discussions moderated by savvy individuals. …
The first day of the conference began with casual conversation as technology issues were addressed. Powerpoint didn’t seem quite so integral. When you get enough people together trying to positively address common issues it doesn’t take much to initiate discussion. Logistics were sorted out and people shuffled around trying to figure out where they needed to be for the first session. Up to three presentations are available for each block of time so everyone can find something they’re into. The campus itself is beautiful, settled down between the rising foothills on the east side of the Rockies. Walking around the small campus is easy and provides additional time to chat …
My 1984 Mercedes 190E is sitting in the long-term parking lot after half an hour drive from the Steel City Biofuels office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Gunnar and I are waiting in the Pittsburgh International Airport, plugging away on our laptops waiting for our first plane which will take us south to Atlanta Georgia. From there we will be heading to the northwest and land in Denver, Colorado. Then we will drive 40 minutes to the west to arrive in Golden at the base of the Continental Divide. We will be learning about local sustainable fuels.
Check out our pictures of what has been going on at Steel City Biofuels.
Just uploaded: Pictures from our display showing the life cycles of 4 fuels (petroleum, biodiesel, ethanol, and vegetable oil) at Hot House 2007; GTECH’s sunflower field at the LTV Steel brown-field in Hazelwood; and pictures of setting up our new office in the Construction Junction building in the East End.
http://picasaweb.google.com/steelcitybiofuels
