ALTERNATIVE VEHICLES AND FUELS NEAR THE CANADA BORDER
Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington is remarkable for a lot of reasons. One of them is the Vehicle Research Institute. Automobile magazine said of the VRI that it’s “very possibly the best school in the country for total car design.” That was reason enough for the Energy Rush TV team to travel to this campus located just south of the Canadian border, and that’s exactly what we did last summer.
The VRI was founded by Dr. Michael Seal in 1972. Over the years, more than twenty cars have been designed and built from the ground up by teachers and students, starting with the Viking 1. The Energy Rush TV crew took a ride in the Viking 32 recently in Seattle. The Viking 32 is described as a clean natural gas electric safety vehicle. It’s unique in that it’s operational with methane gas that’s manufactured on-site from cow manure run through an anaerobic digester. That’s right, a hybrid electric that runs on cow poop.
We interviewed Michael Seal at the VRI, where he told us about the institute’s history. Dr. Seal is an old friend and contemporary of Dr. Andy Frank, another Energy Rush TV frequent collaborator. The two have been running concurrent (and at times competing) alternative vehicle research facilities for decades. Seal speaks with candor, and at times expresses what might seem like audacious views. For instance, he predicts that the price of gasoline could reach as high as $100 per gallon. (There’s a scary thought for those of you who are frightened by the thought of four dollar a gallon fuel.) He also spoke of how production of ethanol is morally controversial, as it’s essentially “burning food” to power cars. Now in the twilight of a long career, Seal says his goal is to “produce more cars than Tucker did” – a reference to the number of automobiles built by the entrepreneurial carmaker Preston Tucker of the 1940’s.
The man who has taken over as chief of the VRI is Eric Leonhardt, who is actually a graduate of WWU and the VRI program. Leonhardt spoke with us at length and gave our crew an up close look at their newest vehicle, the Viking 32, and the anaerobic digester. He said that in the area surrounding their campus, there are enough cows to produce the equivalent of 30 million gallons of gas via the conversion of manure to methane fuel. That’s a lot of cow poop!
After our visit to Western Washington University, we traveled south and made a stop at the Whole Energy refinery near Mount Vernon, Washington. Whole Energy is a biofuel company which started in northwestern Washington and is gradually expanding throughout the west coast. We interviewed one of the facility’s engineers, who showed us biodiesel samples from many different feedstocks.
We also interviewed Atul Deshmane, CEO of Whole Energy, who is clearly a dynamic and vibrant leader in the industry. Atul was born in India, and he told us the story of how his grandfather had a farm there and became the first biomass producer in that country. Deshmane spoke to us about the great team he’s put together at Whole Energy, as well as the potential new sites and clients he’s looking at.
Both the Vehicle Research Institute and Whole Energy are still very much on the Energy Rush TV radar screen, and we’ll bring you updates on new developments as they happen.
