Text Box: Hi Everyone, About this time of year (after Bioneers) I look back and try to get a big picture view, and then pass it along for outreach & input from all of you.   

Text Box: If you're looking to get into nearly petroleum free driving, I am selling my converted 87 Mercedes 300D Turbo (http://www.bozemanbiofuels.com/CONVERSIONS.htm) to make way for my electric vehicle program.  The car was purchases under the plan of Buy-Convert-Drive-Sell, and as hard as it is to execute the last step, the time has come.  It has been run on svo for over 10k miles and works great.  It's a high end greasecar with 2 new sets of tires.  Greasecars are not for short trips around town as they prefer to be run continually and be used for extended driving, especially in winter. For more information on any of the above see the other pages of www.bozemanbiofuels.com or email me.  Have a great holiday season (and go for the LED xmas lights)! Paul   Text Box: Days we’re not. Text Box: The MAJOR ADVANCEMENTS of Bozeman Biofuels in the last year include: - Completing the combined heat and power project with the 15kw diesel generator running on straight vegetable oil (SVO), and using the 'waste' heat for the oil filtration system and heating at the shop (thanks to Northwestern Energy for funding).  Now it's ready to charge up a fleet of electric vehicles and is already running the saw that cuts the hardwood firewood! - Running the SVO boiler at the Bohart Guest House almost indefinitely.  Nothing sold in the vegetable oil world works as advertised, and this $6000 unit was no exception.  It now eats the hydrogenated oil (an ongoing headache) thru a heated fuel pickup in the bottom of the tank that filters the used cooking oil, with only 1 shutdown since June. - Upsizing the SVO filter system at the guest house garage to require one tenth of the time input to filter oil, while simultaneously achieving a much higher oil filtration level. - Processing and selling a record 300+ drums of oak firewood (thanks to Bill, Vaughan & Melissa for helping cut).  The wood is available again this season   www.tulikivifuel.com  - kiln dried oak that would have ended up in the landfill; hauled, cut, and delivered on veg power.  - Reselling 740 gal of biodiesel in one month from the solar powered tanks at the shop with no major catastrophes. - Testing out 2 pedal-electric bikes for the summer to begin learning about electric vehicles (they're more fun than vegetable oil cars and 100 times simpler).  http://practicalpedal.com/ is a great little local newspaper on biking as transportation as well as for fun.  I've made a page on the biofuels web site for electric bikes and cars.  If you are mechanically inclined and want to get involved in building electric bikes, or just want more information, visit the web site.  - Getting out of town to Colorado for New Year's, Canada for February hut skiing, the Utah desert in spring, Wenatchee, WA for an electric car conference in May, Banff/Calgary to deliver a Mercedes engine for 4th of July (the most patriotic thing I could think to do), and to Hood River for August to escape the heat wave, harvest peaches and pears, and do our part to slow the wind blowing up the Columbia River Gorge (otherwise known as windsurfing).  Every trip was fueled with vegetable oil from Bozeman & Hood River restaurants - never ran out, never had to run diesel, but it wan't always easy.  If you envy the self-employed, cutting edge renewable energy lifestyle, just remember that it's open to anyone. Text Box: - Having Melissa's 96 Chevy overheat and self-destruct after 3 weeks of SVO driving.  Lesson: never get your radiator flushed. It may loosen up crud that makes a worse problem, as in, no water circulation.  Another lesson: never loan your SVO vehicle to anyone (it happened while neither of us was driving it).  It had nothing to do with the vegoil conversion, just regular internal combustion complications (electric vehicles have 1/10 the moving parts of an engine-powered car).  Car engines are actually boilers which convert a small portion of their fuel to rotational energy, most of what they produce is heat.   Text Box: - Finding the greenhouse that John Milich, my Dad and I put together behind the shop blown over in a windstorm after a week's use.  It was supposed to provide a warm oil settling room.  Lesson: don't buy greenhouse kits from China either. Text Box: MAJOR FAILURES: - Watching a rod come thru the first diesel generator's engine after 4 minutes of operation, which was after 2 months of converting it to SVO.  They replaced the whole unit so I could start back at the beginning, and it was a different engine so it really was starting over.  Lesson: don't buy generators from Generator Depot/China where someone forgets to tighten rod bolts.  Text Box: Days we’re happy we’re in the business.   Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Energy Conservation Text Box: I am offering a free home energy consulting visit to the first 3 people who request it (you may have noticed this service on the web site).  If we can't cut 25% off your power bill by doing 2-3 hours of weatherizing, cleaning your fridge coils, and changing your light bulbs, I will make a donation on your behalf to Exxon, or give you a subscription to Montana's Alternative Energy Research Organization.  When I weatherized my own house, my bill was cut in half.  You supply the light bulbs, weather stripping, and equal labor.      So much focus is put on developing new energy sources, but rarely mentioned is cutting back on consumption, which is the cheapest form of renewable energy by a factor of 10 to 1, sometimes 100 to 1.  I'll show you how to use a power meter that measures anything you plug in, which is a great way to learn about electricity.  How many watts of heat does the average human give off?  How many 100-watt light bulbs would Lance Armstrong be able to light up on a flat track for extended rides?  See, it's fun already!!     If you want to go further, solar air heating and solar hot water are my best recommendations. Now there's even someone to install solar hot water for you:  Todd Hoitsma, Montana Liquid Solar  liquid.solar@mac.com     Another excellent local resource is Gary at www.builitsolar.com.  Check out the brilliance of his "Half Plan" and his DIY weekend-scale solar projects and a vast reference of electric mowers, cars, bikes; wind, micro-hyrdo, personal CO2 calculators, lighting, and much more! Text Box: Fuel Conservation Text Box: C o n s e r v e Text Box: There is one source of energy that is limitless:  it is located 93 million miles away, takes 8 minutes to get here, and leaves no waste.  The question is, can we afford NOT to go solar.  With all of the free sources of energy to tap into (wind sun, waves, hydro) it makes it really hard to vote for continuing the Oil & Coal Party.  Here's a good summary of the farse of Liquid Coal:  http://beyondoil.nrdc.org/news/gas-from-coal.php Text Box: Text Box: Bozeman’s Own!!! Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: 2007 Fall newsletter post-Bioneers Text Box: www.ecoautoinc.com http://ww.autobloggreen.com/tag/solar-bug/               (yes - only two w’s) Text Box: Text Box: Check out this link:     for more information on V2G   Text Box: Perhaps the most exciting thing about EVs is their role in allowing wind and solar power to provide a higher portion of our electric needs.  Through technology being developed called Vehicle-to-Grid, or V2G, the EV is used as grid storage.  Excess energy produced by the power companies at night is stored in the car batteries (with enough EVs plugged in and houses hooked up to the grid).  Through discount incentives from the power provider (in our case, Northwestern Energy) the cars' batteries are allowed to feed into the grid when needed.  In addition, the car's battery works as a backup power supply for the house.     Text Box: GOING ELECTRIC A few years ago I had a good friend in vegoil world tell me he was leaning toward electric vehicles.  A year later, I wasn't so surprised when I had the same realization.  If you have yet to see Who Killed The Electric Car, then you may not realize how useful and practical EV (electric vehicle) cars are.  The technology has been proven so there's no reason to wait, except that conversion kits are backordered and production EV choices are limited.  Solution: We have some heavy hitting entrepreneurs here in Bozeman: Steve Titus built his own Solar Bug which you may have seen and is working toward producing it for sale, and Eco Auto sells EV cars, scooters, and soon bikes, and is also working on a Subaru EV which would be the first all wheel drive EV in the world.  Electric Vehicles are faster, quieter, more efficient, much easier to maintain and MUCH cheaper to drive than engine-powered vehicles.  And even if you charge them up with power from a coal-fired plant their emissions are a fraction of even the most efficient engine-powered cars.