Bozeman's First 400 mpg (diesel) Vehicle
20 mpg counting vegetable oil & diesel
CHOICE
ENERGY
aka
Renewable Energy & Consulting
Fuel Local - Drive Sustainable - Be A Solution
Is your company or organization green? Prove
it! Green
Directory Montana offers proof of the sustainability efforts of listed
businesses and organizations
Green Directory Montana brings
customers and businesses together to help make Montana sustainable for
future generations. Every purchase is a vote. A vote for a company that
either does or does not agree with your vision of the future.
Where to Begin???
It all starts with a a beautiful sunset, or any experience with nature that
instills a sense of caring about what we do here on earth. That leads
to web sites like this and a consciousness about energy. We just don't
teach people what energy is, which makes it hard to conserve it.
Without an energy consciousness, how would we know that:
- using our car brakes is wasting energy (and causing expensive brake
maintenance)? Or that,
- when we use hot water from a faucet the entire line is filled with hot
water which is lost once the tap is turned off?
There are two great documentaries that
will open peoples' eyes to energy and entertain you at the same time.
Kill-a-watt Hours is an analysis of electricity starting at the wall outlet.
Gasland is the equivalent journey for natural gas. I guarantee that,
after watching these, you will care more about the impacts of your energy
use than the actual power bill itself! Further down this page are some
really easy ways to use energy more effectively:
What You Can Do Today!
Current Projects
- Electric Bicycles & Lawnmowers
- Including the All Electric Lawn Mowing
Service
Lowest overhead possible for a mowing operation means cheaper rates, and 98%
less emissions!
We believe
Electric vehicles (EV) are a true solution and there is a page in this web site devoted to them.
Electric assisted bikes are the most efficient
means of moving yourself and quite a load, bar none. At $.003/mile,
the electricity used is negligible, and they are four times more useful than
a regular bike. Cars cannot keep up with these units, even in 35 mph
urban zones. They top out at 25-30 mph and go 15-25 miles between charges.
EVs go along well with large-scale wind and solar power, as they can be used to store off-peak power as well as for transportation. Having an EV is like having a backup power supply. If you haven't seen the documentary Who Killed The Electric Car then it's time to do so. It's one of the most entertaining documentaries we've seen, in addition to being extremely important.
If you think going electric is expensive, think about the $600/mo you're probably spending on each gas car..... More Info
- Solar Furnaces
Southwest Montana is one of
many
perfect places for solar anything - heating or power production - with
excellent solar radiation and plenty of heating needs. Our
wall-mounted solar air heaters are the epitome of simple, with no expensive
materials and low embodied energy of materials. Air is warmed inside the panel and flows naturally
into the ceiling of the interior space, replaced by cool air from the floor
area.
We have completed three units and are now scheduling installations.
The 8'x12' panel shown above is sufficient to heat 300-400 sq ft of
insulated shop or living space, and costs between $1400-2000 installed
(depending on type of construction used in the existing building).
More Info
- Carbon Neutral demonstration home
and home energy
consulting including solar air/hot water, electrical usage reduction, and
weatherization
This home has been a weekly rental
since 1998 and allows hundreds of people annually to experience a wide variety
of energy saving applications. Half of the electric bill was old light
bulbs and an old fridge. Kill-A-Watt
meters provide real time energy analysis. The home was converted to hot water
baseboard heating supplied by a boiler fueled solely by a vegetable oil
powered boiler (like a heating oil boiler only
much cleaner since heating oil is #1 diesel). The home also has solar hot water
for pre-heating tap water, on-demand gas boiler for backup, and carbon credits for
electrical use. Even the hot tub is heated by the boiler running
locally harvested used cooking oil. For
more info:
http://bozemancottage.com/Bohart_RE.htm
-
Used cooking oil
- collection, filtration and use as diesel fuel in
vehicles, generators, and home heating boilers (all 3 aspects
successfully demonstrated and used)
Generator is for sale
Local restaurants supply used cooking oil which is fed to a high
tech SVO fueled boiler providing all the heating for the house (see above) and its
tap water. Vegoil is also sold as an alternative to diesel
fuel and the boiler even supplies the heat necessary to filter the used oil.
Generator project funded by Northwestern Energy, 15 kw stationary genset
running on SVO with utilization of waste heat (exhaust and engine) in
radiant heat system as well as electricity to power a 48-volt
battery bank with inverter. Electricity generated by internal
combustion is not
allowed to be net-metered in Montana, so battery storage is required.
Thinking about switching to used cooking oil? The
local supply has less pressure on it with lower fuel prices so there is
again an opportunity for others to start using the fuel.
More Info on Vegetable Oil Primer Page
I am
Paul House, an individual lacking the patience to wait for commercially
available solutions. I bought the first project vehicle in 2004
when diesel was $1.75/gal, a '94 Chevy truck,
and converted it to run on straight
vegetable oil in April 05. This truck is used to harvest local biofuel using a bed-mounted crane and drum handling equipment. In
December 05 the conversion of my 95 Suburban was finished. Other
conversions include: 91 Mercedes 350SD, 87 Mercedes 300D, 88 Toyota 4x4 truck, 91 F250, 89 Suburban, 88 GMC Ice
Cream Truck, 02 Jetta, 01 Dodge truck. The fleet is fueled with SVO for which I pay the road tax.
With these systems up and running, I used them to my advantage to delve into solar hot water, solar air heating, and [electrifying] electric bikes and lawnmowers. The simplicity of solar heating and electric motors is quite refreshing after working with diesel engines! Since the volume of used vegetable oil is never going to solve our problems, I am highly encouraged by electric applications to transportation, lawnmowers, and snowblowers. Click the links above to learn more about each category of appropriate technology.
- Conserve - using less is always the best first move. For electrical usage, get yourself one of these: Kill-a-Watt Meter This handy little meter tells the truth about energy use by anything that plugs into the wall outlet. Reads real time usage in watts, amps and volts, and accumulates total usage. A new model even calculates savings in $.
- Go solar! Liquid fuels are great but solar fuels itself. Solar
air heating is the most affordable, followed by solar hot water, then solar
electric.
- Hire Choice Energy to consult you on your alternative energy projects
so you can get started faster! See Consulting page.
New construction or remodels.
- Take the ski rack off your car in summer (2 mpg savings)
- Consolidate your hot water usage; learn how much hot water is wasted each
time you use the hot tap
- Upgrade to programmable thermostats
- Turn off lights; add motion sensor wall switches that turn lights off for you
-
Clean your refrigerator's cooling coils
-
Take your own towel to the gym and when traveling
- Don't buy bottled water or toxic sugar drinks
- Don't eat chemicals (msg, food coloring, etc), don't use petroleum based shampoo
or soap
-
Use a clothes line and indoor drying racks
-
Wear warm clothes in winter, even indoors
- Use an electric blanket & turn it on an hour before bed instead of heating
the whole room (there's nothing like crawling in a hot bed!)
-
Look ahead while driving and coast up to stop lights & stop signs. Stopping a 3500 lb car from
60 mph wastes enough energy to light a 40 watt bulb for 4 hours.
- Drive half as much and pretend your car gets twice the mileage
-
Install a 20-cent flow restrictor in each shower head to save hot water
- Use newspapers for paper towels - doubles as fire starter
- Compost your organic waste
- Grow food, not Kentucky Bluegrass
- Don't waste anything - food, heat, light, water
- Control you junk mail catalog flow
https://www.catalogchoice.org/environmental-facts
- Ride a bike! It can even be electric assist (see EV page on this
site) if you prefer not to sweat
-
Weatherize your home
-
Purchase carbon credits thru Northwestern Energy (link on Consulting Page)
- Talk about human overpopulation
- Enroll in the
Half
Plan and cut your energy use, energy cost, and CO2 emissions in half
- Buy local food in season; build a root cellar in your basement
Along with driving sustainably (and less) here are my other favorite things to keep in touch with:
Real News
- Subscribe to
www.montanagreenpower.com monthly
newsletter
- Join Rocky Mountain Institute
www.rmi.org
-
Link TV (satellite 9410) and Free Speech TV (9415). Email our
PBS station
to request programming.
-
Amy Goodman's Democracynow.org,
the War & Peace Report (stream from web site, PBS should also add)
-
Bill Maher, HBO weekly report
- Clean Energy Bulletin
- Check out the long list of renewable energy projects and news in the
NW. You can sign up to receive the bulletin or log on. This is an
impressive list revealing our 'on-the-brink' status of exploding biodiesel
production, ethanol, wind, wood/biomass, hydro, etc..
Books
- Natural Capitalism, Amory Lovins,
www.naturalcapital.org
(downloadable book)
- The Oil Endgame, Amory Lovins w/ forward by George Shultz,
www.oilendgame.com (also
downloadable)
-
Lee Iocaca, excerpt from Where Have The Leaders
Gone
This page last updated on: Monday January 16, 2012