First Few in LA
Ahhhhh. A few days of rest and being fed copious amounts of delicious food by my grandmother…time to get back to blogging.
On Friday afternoon I spoke with Tor of the Solar Schoolhouse in Martinez…which was pretty fascinating (they educate teachers about solar, plus they offer school room ‘kits’ including pv panels, motors, etc. for kids to experiment with solar, among many things). The Solar Schoolhouse is an offshoot of Tor’s original non-profit creation, the Rahus Institute. I had no idea what Rahus meant, and sort of neglected asking him during the interview (I felt a little bit stupid), but finally he brought it up; ‘Ra’ — as in Ra the Egyptian Sun God + ‘hus’ which means ‘house’ in the Nordic spoken language of Tor’s heritage. Pretty cool name.
Today I will set off to Conserv Fuel in Brentwood (which I found on NearBio), seller of B99, to inquire about where they get their bio, who makes it, and to fill out any paperwork if I decide to fill up there. I’m trying to live according to the maxim that Eric Smith (who will be blogging for EnergyRush soon, he’s awesome) laid out for me when I was in SF: “Only buy biodiesel from people you know.” Not because it’s like a secret club…but because since anyone can make it, I think it’s important to trust where it’s coming from — and I don’t know anyone who mixes it up it here in LA. Hopefully the day will arrive where you can reliably pull into any pump and feel good about what you’re putting in your tank (Eric told me about some well-intentioned forays into biodiesel usage in Berkeley that ended up costing the city and some residents a pretty penny; the fuel they used as not quite up to standards. Luckily we have ASTM standards governing biodiesel sold at pump, but even so…just want to be safe). So I guess I’ll be making new friends. Also, I think GreenDrinks might be happening tonight in Culver City — so I should have some cool stuff to report on in the next couple of days.
–Refined gOil
