David Mackay’s new book is a great resource for preparing for life after petroleum. Read Mapawatt’s review of the book. You can buy it on Amazon or download it for free.

Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air

Responding to a question from a city councilwoman about transportation and infrastructure in the stimulus bill during a town hall forum in Ft. Myers, Florida, President Obama said that the days of just building sprawl are over.

From a transcript provided by Transportation for America:

Not only do we need to rebuild our roads, our bridges, our ports, our levies, our dams, but we also have to plan for the future. This is the same example of turning crisis into opportunity…Now, look, this is America. We always had the best infrastructure. We were always willing to invest in the future. Governor Crist mentioned Abraham Lincoln. In the middle of the Civil War, in the midst of all this danger and peril, what did he do? He helped move the intercontinental railroad.  He helped start land grant colleges. He understood that even when you’re in the middle of crisis, you’ve got to keep your eye on the future. So transportation is not just fixing our old transportation systems but its also imaging new transportation systems.

That’s why I’d like to see high speed rail where it can be constructed. That’s why I would like to invest in mass transit because potentially that’s energy efficient and I think people are alot more open now to thinking regionally in terms of how we plan our transportation infrastructure. The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody recognizes that that’s not a smart way to build communities. So we should be using this money to help spur this kind of innovative thinking when it comes to transportation. That will make a big difference.

OAKLAND, Calif. — It will cost $515 billion annually through 2030 to wean the world off fossil fuels in favor of clean energy sources, according to a report released last week by the World Economic Forum.

Onshore and offshore wind, solar thermal and photovoltaics, waste-to-energy, geothermal and next-generation and sugar-based biofuels were identified as large-scale clean energy sectors that governments throughout the world should pursue to address energy security and climate change, the report (PDF) said.

The report, released at the annual meeting in Davos, suggests the transition to clean energy should be included in government stimulus plans, which is similar to U.S. President Barack Obama’s efforts to include billions in renewable energy and energy efficiency measures in the massive stimulus bill making its way though Congress.

The report’s release comes within days of Texas awarding $5 billion in projects aimed at propping up capacity of the state’s transmission lines, which currently cannot handle incredible growth in wind energy generation.

When the projects are completed, there could be up to 2,900 miles of new power lines. Texas leads the country in wind generation, and current power lines are near capacity.

Over the past year, I’ve researched ways in which I can simplify my life in a healthy, organic way.  It involves getting back to older ways of life.  Living before fast-food, frozen meals and preservatives.  We’re raising fruits and vegetables in a garden in our yard and frequenting organic farmer’s markets near our home on the weekends to shop for our family.

Here is a website created by a couple in Louisiana that got tired of living in a fast-paced world and made major lifestyle changes to create a better life for themselves.  Enjoy reading about their new-found freedom.

While lifestyle changes are not the easiest for everyone, this family found that simplifiying their life greatly improved the quality of the life they are living.  Not to mention the amount of petroleum they are saving by removing themselves from the rat race!

I am often a skeptic of theories until I can read enough information to support a logical conclusion that the theory is true or false.  Climate change was one of those theories that I wondered if it was really true.  I watched a Youtube video of a young scientist who used standard logic to determine that the best option was to assume that climate change was real and to do something about it.  Here’s the video to watch and help you make up your own mind on climate change:

Polar Ice Caps Melting by September

It appears that the ice at the North Pole has decided to melt and should be completely melted by this September.  I guess you can look on the bright side; now you can take a cruise to the North Pole and experience what many an explorer froze to death trying to accomplish!

It’s also a well-known fact that there is oil under the Arctic Ocean.  I guess it will also be easier to drill for it now…

- Veggie Ranger

After researching several online sources for e-books on “running a car on water” and watching numerous Youtube videos, I settled on what seemed to be the most informative site on the technology.  www.hho-hybrid.com.  Instead of showing pictures of using a mayonnaise jar with some wire, steel mesh and hose, the hho-hybrid site discusses the use of a machined cylinder lying down horizontally to create the most surface area for electrolysis.  It also stated that their system could be used with a gas or diesel engine.  Since I run all turbo-diesel vehicles, I was curious to learn more about using this technology both with gas and diesel combustion engines.

I purchased the e-book for $30 and hoped to get a link to download the e-book after paying.  The delivery method was not automated but I did receive the e-book by email within two days of ordering.  I won’t give away the contents of the e-book but suffice it to say that the first two-thirds of the book described in detail how an internal combustion engine works.  A more detailed version of this content is available for free by going to www.howstuffworks.com and searching on “internal combustion engine.”  At the end of the e-book, they talked about the components necessary for building the HHO kit but left out some detail explaining that it was proprietary.

The last few pages does have pictures of the components that come in their $250 HHO Conversion kit.  The pictures and component list is enough information to build the kit but for gas engines, they also show pictures of a printed-circuit board and wires for a component that fools the emissions control system on a gas car to improve the fuel mileage based on the injected hho gas from the kit.  There is not enough information in the book to build these components.

After reading the entire e-book, I was disappointed to find that there was no mention of a diesel engine throughout the book.  I sent an email to the support desk for the company and received a prompt reply explaining that there aren’t details on using it with a diesel engine but it will work if the engine is non-turbo.  They also stated that they might be able to get a turbo diesel engine to work with the kit and would be happy to help with this.  I’m assuming this would be for a consulting fee.

I’m considering taking the research one step forward by building or buying the kit and trying it on a gas car.  I need to find a guinea pig with a gas car that is willing to experiment or I will have to wait until I can find an inexpensive gas car to play with.

Stay tuned for more analysis once I acquire or build the kit and install it on a vehicle!

- Veggie Ranger

I had a neighbor call me a while ago and ask me about HHO or Brown’s gas injection to save fuel. I’m known as the neighborhood’s energy “mad scientist” so he figured he would ask me before buying e-books and kits to convert his F-150 company vehicle.

I surfed the internet and was amazed at all of the sites discussing HHO as the miracle mileage saver both for gas and diesel vehicles. However, most of the sites gave little bits of information and offered the rest as a e-book download for a fee. It reminded me a lot of the first time I heard you can run a diesel engine on waste vegetable oil so I began searching for blogs and forum postings on people’s experiences with using HHO injection to get better fuel mileage. To my dismay, I found nothing credible; just people debunking it as a scam but not from their own experience in trying it. Others swear by it but couldn’t provide more than a few sentences on how much fuel they saved or a short Youtube video showing the device under the hood bubbling and boiling its contents with the engine running.

After further research, I did find some comments that appeared to come from an engineer that was involved in a research project at Caltech’s JPL analyzing HHO as a fuel enhancer.

In order to contribute more information and research on the actual results of researching, installing and testing an HHO or Brown’s gas injection system, I have purchased what appears to be the most complete and well-thought-out e-book on how to build and install an HHO injection system.

Over the next few months, I will be chronicling my experiences with testing HHO injection on gas and diesel vehicles. Stay tuned…

- Veggie Ranger

Sources:

Green Car Congress Article

Welcome to the NotPetroleum Blog! I am an alternative energy entrepreneur in the Atlanta, Georgia area. Among my many hobbies, I collect used cooking oil and process it into fuel for my diesel cars. I also research ways that we can reduce our dependence on petroleum without changing our habits or behavior.

Weaning ourselves from petroleum is an important part of long-term Energy Independence. Some of the methods of reducing petroleum usage that you will find in this blog are biofuels, solar thermal, solar PV, concentrating solar, wind, hydro, micro-hydro, and energy efficiency.

This site is where I plan to store the research I collect on living a life of Petroleum Independence. I hope you enjoy this site and find the content useful!

Saying NO to Petroleum when I can,

– Veggie Ranger