Posts from — November 2008

In our attempts to bring you new information and interesting developments in the field of eco-consciousness and green innovation, today’s story revolves around a fuel invented by Gene Jackson and his company, Power Ecalene Fuels, Inc. (PEFI).

As we have seen many times before, some of the most suitable inventions are made ahead of their time. The hype about Hybrid technology in the last few years goes back to inventions made in the 40’s and 50’s. To bring the idea to market in a large enough scale was not feasible at the time, not just because gas was cheap, but because all the other components necessary to make it work weren’t available.

Green Fuel Sources

Something similar is true about Mr. Jackson invention, or should I say improvements. He picked up on an innovation originally made by Dow Chemical. At the time they invented a fluid made from Syngas, fossil based fuels were so cheap that there was no real market. PEFI went back some time ago, improved the process, got its own patents, and is now working on bringing its miracle fuel to market. The stuff is called ”Ecalene”. Below is what I found at the PEFI website (paraphrased and
condensed):

“Company founder Gene Jackson has been improving the Ecalene™ production process for 20 years. Several million dollars were spent perfecting the gas-to-liquid technology excluding any R&D expenditures from Dow Chemical, originator of the alcohol-from-syngas process. Independent patents were provided to Jackson for his development. The company now seeks to spread its green technology globally by operating its own production facilities and licensing its patented technology internationally.”
Here is how the company describes itself and its positioning for Ecalene™:

“Mission Statement:

Green Miracle Liquid

To provide clean fuel and green fuel alternatives to fossil fuels that will curb the U.S. dependence on foreign oil while reducing global warming and eliminating potentially toxic waste from our soil and ground water.

Objective

To become the recognized world leader in clean fuels production technology and to provide more green fuel globally through deployment of its technology than any other clean fuel provider.

Logo

Ecalene™ has an octane rating of 124+ that is 33% to 43% higher than regular unleaded gasoline, which is rated between 87 and 93 Octane. It is 10% higher than ethanol at a 113 octane rating and 18% higher than for E85 fuel.

Ecalene™’s formulation properties enable it to be used as a stand-alone fuel in flex- fuel engines and in jet aircraft. Ecalene™ has higher energy content than ethanol and will provide better gas mileage than ethanol when blended into gasoline as an oxygenate or octane booster. Ecalene™ has been registered with the EPA as a fuel additive. It is roughly estimated that Ecalene™ will reduces car emissions to levels 80-90% of the emissions levels for unleaded gasoline. Most cars, trucks, buses, jet aircraft and boats can be modified to run on pure Ecalene™.

Protection of our environment is the primary driving force behind the development of the Ecalene™ system. The technology was devised at a time when gasoline was cheap and neither energy producers or the public were committed to a clean environment-only cheap energy. Today the world recognizes the damage we have done to the environment in our quest to deliver cheap energy. As a global community, we have become more sensitized to the need for maintaining the only environment we have. It must continue to produce clean air, water, food and energy for a rapidly expanding population. The Ecalene™ product technology is designed to improve virtually every aspect of the global environment from reducing global warming to improving water quality.

Coal & Natural Gas (Clean Not Green)

Ethanol, really?

Using natural gas or raw coal promises to produce the largest volume of Ecalene™ fuel at minimum cost, potentially enough to totally displace crude oil in the creation of transportation fuel. It is estimated that America has a 300-year supply of coal, oil shale, and other hydrocarbons. Coal is one of the nation’s most abundant energy resources, currently supplying about half the nation’s electricity demand. Gasifying coal to produce alcohol fuel utilizing the PECI process is considerably more environmentally favorable than combusting it to produce electricity.

Municipal Waste Is Green

Despite the ability of the Ecalene™ production system to create “clean fuels” from coal and other fossil fuels, these resources are not renewable. Ecalene™ can be used to create renewable or “green” fuels from feedstock that is renewable. Utilizing organic wastes, such as MSW, as feedstock represents the most environmentally friendly, economically viable, and virtually untapped source of renewable energy for the country. Americans create over 300 million tons of municipal solid waste annually, of which about one- third is recycled. Municipalities currently pay waste management contractors about $23 a ton to receive ship and bury waste. On average, about 80% of MSW can be gasified, and it is roughly estimated that the 200 million tons currently placed in landfills each year could produce 10 to 20 billion gallons of Ecalene™.

Green Fuel

Other Green Feedstock

Besides MSW and sludge that grow proportionally with the increase in population, Ecalene™ can also utilize plentiful cellulosic biomass including wood waste. When combined with their MSW, large wood waste producing states (Georgia, Oregon, Arkansas etc.) can produce half their fuel requirements from the biomass they generate.”

If you like to learn more, goto:

http://www.powerecalene.com/index.php

In case you like to get in otuch with Gene Jackson directly, you can email him at genej@powerenergy.com (he gave me permission to make his address public in this article)

When looking at many of the applications imaginable for this miracle fuel, I wonder if it would be feasible to use a lot of the gas and the organic material our communities have been dumping into landfills to create Ecalene™. This would potentially lead to a number of applications:

•  The community could use the fuel generated to run its municipal fleet of cars, buses, trucks, etc. for everything from police, fire, mass-transit to city maintenance, etc.
• Each city has energy needs to heat and light its buildings. That could probably be achieved through generators run by Ecalene™ 
• Larger cities could develop public transportation systems that run on Ecalene™ or go even one step further and provide so called flexible city-transportation option, as recently introduced in Europe. You park you vehicle at the outskirts of the town and get into a city provided small car, bikes, busses, etc.
• In farming communities the municipalities could work with the agricultural companies to use all the bio-degradable material to generate Ecalene™ and provide any surplus to the workers and their families as well as use it form all the farming equipment.
• Finally, if anybody has ever driven by a feed yard for milk production and industrial beef or pork, the stink is unbearable. Providing it to a PEFI facility could probably significantly reduce the smell, allow the animals to live in better conditions, and generate fuel form all the biomass they consume during the day. This could work in conjunction with biogas generators or all by itself.

Green Refueling

I am sure I am missing a whole list of other applications. This is an exciting alternative to our current dilemma. I hope people don’t get caught by the recent drop in gas/oil prices. As we keep printing Dollars to pay for a new bailout or rescue plan, we shouldn’t forget that all this money will devalue our currency. Not only will oil run out some time in the future, but massive inflation from all this newly introduced money will create higher prices.

This is the quiet before the storm. Looking for credible alternatives is important, and it appears to me that Ecalene™ is one of them, especially if PEFI can stay away form liquefying natural gas to create it.

As always, feel free to comment and let me know what you think about miracle fuel Ecalene™

Axel Meierhoefer

Today I am bringing you two stories of developments revolving around eco-consciousness that show how innovative and beautiful the green world of the future can be. These stories come from my subscription to the popular science magazine and are supplemented with some addition research material and pictures I found online. The first story was originally created by Cliff Kuang, the second part is form official news sources in Bahrain. I hope you enjoy and have lots of comments

The Bamboo Builder

Bamboo Builder

Yan Xiao found a way to turn China’s abundant and fast-growing bamboo fields into buildings and bridges

As a child growing up in northern China, Yan Xiao loved flying kites. A born engineer, he made them himself out of paper sails and plain bamboo frames. The kites were durable and cheap. Xiao left China at age 22 to study civil engineering in Japan and the U.S. but returned as a visiting professor at Hunan University in 2002. On a trip to the region’s vast bamboo forests, the memory of those kites gave the 47-year-old Xiao a flash of inspiration: Bamboo was strong enough for kites, but he suspected that it could be fortified to make even sturdier things, like bridges and houses.

Xiao, now an engineering professor at the University of Southern California, scoured textbooks and the Internet, hoping to find historical precedent for structural bamboo. His research had urgency. Most of China has been stripped of timber-worthy trees, so rural buildings are often made of shoddy concrete, which is exactly what led to the catastrophic school collapses during the earthquakes in Sichuan province in May. What Xiao found wasn’t terribly useful: a wealth of arty one-off projects, but nothing a contractor could ever build with.

Bamboo is a remarkable material. Some species have stalks as dense as hardwood. It’s the world’s fastest-growing woody plant, and it’s an exceptionally good absorber of carbon. But its irregular, knotty form is a problem. Making a reliable bamboo structure used to mean picking through stalks to find the ones that met precise measurements. Timber, on the other hand, can be cut to standard sizes. So Xiao set about developing a process to transform bamboo strips into easy-to-manage beams. In 2006 he devised GluBam, bamboo timber sturdy enough for beams and trusses. Last winter, he returned to China and, using just an eight-man crew and no machinery, built a 33-foot GluBam bridge capable of supporting eight tons in the remote, ramshackle Hunan province town of Leiyang. The feat was so surprising, it was covered on China’s national news.

Bamboo Beam

Since then, Xiao has been busy building GluBam houses and classrooms in parts of Sichuan leveled by earthquakes. But he hopes that GluBam’s most positive effect might be an overhaul of the bamboo industry itself. China produces up to a third of the world’s bamboo—Hunan a quarter of that output—but much of it goes to low-value, barely profitable uses, such as concrete molds and chopsticks. GluBam could spark a dynamic industry in China and provide a sustainable replacement for current forestry operations worldwide. “That was the intent all along,” Xiao says. “This could open a vast market. It could create a whole new source of money and jobs.”

The bridge Yan Xiao built in Leiyang with GluBam was the town’s first. Each beam that spans the brick columns was created using Xiao’s novel process of transforming irregular bamboo into a practical building material. First he tore strips of bamboo from the stalk and arranged them in such a way as to provide the most strength. He then coated the strips with glue and compressed them in a self-built hydraulic press into beams, 33 feet long and up to three feet wide, each capable of supporting eight tons. Xiao says that the beams cost just 20 percent as much as imported lumber. Better still, rural China has a constantly replenishing supply of bamboo.

The Exotic Wind Farmers

Bahrain 1

Not wanting to be left behind by Saudi Arabia and Dubai, the country of Bahrain has been approving some interesting and eye-popping developments in the realm of green architecture. Especially interesting is the new Bahrain World Trade Center located in the city of Manama. The 50-story complex contains two identical towers that rise over 240 meters in height.

The sail-shaped buildings offer a visually striking silhouette, appropriately referencing the maritime environment of this small Middle Eastern island, and boast one very unique feature — 3 giant wind turbines tying the two “sails” together.

Bahrein 3

The first skyscraper to integrate large-scale wind turbines suspends three 1,200-megawatt units between its matching 787-foot office towers. The turbines, which were completed in April, supply 15 percent of the electricity for the two buildings—roughly the same amount used by 300 homes.

Bahrein 2

To maximize energy output, the tapered towers funnel wind between them, creating a negative pressure zone behind the buildings that draws more air through the gap. This suction effect increases wind speeds by up to 30 percent at each of the 95-foot-long rotors to boost electricity production. It also redirects wind gusts hitting the tower by up to 45 degrees off center so that they hit the turbines at a nearly perpendicular angle for optimal electricity generation

As these stories and pictures show, beauty and daring architecture do not mean something can’t be environmentally friendly. Is 10-15% of the energy use acceptable – maybe not. But it is the first attempt to use modern, alternative ways to produce energy directly integrated into the structure of a large building. As solar foil material will become more and more available and we no longer need to have rigid, silicon based panels, it should be possible to add energy generation on the skin of the buildings reaching much higher levels than the three wind turbines alone.

Axel Meierhoefer

Since we have started focusing our work more and more on the integration of environmentally relevant aspects of personal development and self improvement, I have been looking for stories of success and applications we can all use to become more eco-conscious.

Recent writings pointed towards transportation solutions as well as management and leadership aspects of eco-consciousness. As in any cause based effort, it is important to get the word out, develop an image and a reputation, and provide value to the followers. In additions I want to gather ideas that will actually help us to build the community of eco-pioneers.

Instead of killing trees by creating flyers, postcards, newspaper ads, or anything like this, I have decided to use social networks and the advise of marketing gurus like Glen Crosier to help me establish a following around our cause.

One of these social networks is Facebook. It is one of the fastest growing online communities, especially since it made the decision to move form a college student forum to an open community, inviting people from all walks of life and all kinds of businesses.

While updating my own entries and profile and commenting on other friends writings, stories, and comments, I received a message from my Facebook Friend Krista English. 

She lives in Santa Barbara, just as I do, and we had been trying to meet and find an opportunity to get to know each other for some time. When Krista saw the new orientation of my company towards eco-consciousness and combining modern approaches to management, leadership and self-growth with the green revolution, Krista took action and made me aware of a gem in our proverbial backyard.

If you like to read or learn a little more about Krista, use this link and read her amazing story of perseverance, hope and success. http://www.shaklee.net/restoringyourdreams/aboutme

The Gem Krista made me aware of is the Shaklee Corporation. She wrote to me:

“Shaklee Corp. is a true eco-pioneer — Founded in 1956 with the philosophy of living in harmony with nature, Shaklee is committed to developing products to improve the health of people and the planet. In 1960, Shaklee introduced Basic-H Concentrated Organic Cleaner, one of the first nontoxic, biodegradable cleaners. I love being a part of a company that has been helping people go green long before it became a fad to do so! You should check out our other environmental achievements too!”

Shaklee philosophies

And so I did. What I found was pretty amazing and worth writing about.

Krista described it this way:
It’s truly astonishing how visionary this company is. In 2000, Shaklee became the first company in the world to obtain Climate Neutral certification and totally offset its C02 emissions, resulting in a net zero impact on the environment. In 2006, Shaklee became the first consumer products company to offset 100% of C02 emissions through the EPA Climate Leader’s program, and uses 100% Green Power. 

Environment

Shaklee chooses to run its business with a net zero impact on the earth - these decisions were made many years ago, knowing it might not be good for business, but that it was the right thing to do. Now they empower people everywhere to make a difference, one home at a time, even planting 5 trees per customer in the Gold Ambassador program.” 

When you search a little more and look a little deeper, you find a company that is very successful without having any stores, or regular distribution channels, and that works in a networked way, awarding commissions to those who go around and spread the word about the products and use them regularly. It’s probably not as fast a process as the marketing campaigns for the Apple Ipod, but it has created a sustainable business winning awards left and right, and making its members proud of their affiliation with the company. 

Here is what Shaklee says about dreams:

“At some time in most people’s lives, the idealism of youth gives way to the reality of bills, and they find themselves hitting the snooze button over and over on Monday morning.

Dreams

We think most people are snoozing when they are dreaming.

We believe it’s every person’s innate right to be prosperous, regardless of education, class, ethnicity, gender, or location. We believe it’s every person’s innate right to live the life they have imagined.”

Winning awards and planting trees is one thing. Working in a climate neutral way is pretty amazing. The real manifestation that you are fully immersed in your philosophy can be found in the physical monuments an organization created for itself.

And again, Shaklee delivers:

“The Corporation world headquarters in Pleasanton, California, is much more than the center of operations. It’s a physical tribute to what Shaklee believes in.

Success

It was designed by world-renowned architect, Gensler, to make a people-friendly, earth-friendly space that reflects Shaklee’s commitment to Living in Harmony with Nature®. No matter where you are in the building, you can see sky, trees, hills and fields. Advanced architectural design brings the beauty of outdoors inside with natural light, natural materials, and natural colors.”

Not only that, but it is build from renewable sources and applying the most modern methods of eco-consciousness and environmentally and energy-saving building technologies.

Overall, it’s a Gem right here in my back yard and they are always open for people to join them, as distributors as well as customers. I am not writing this as an endorsement. I have not worked for them or ever used one of their products. 

Eco-consciousness

I am writing this to bring an example of successful eco-conscious behavior to my readers. Shaklee has been at this since 1956. As Krista said, they have seen the need for eco-consciousness long before most others. That gives them a huge advantage in experience and we can all learn from them. Take a look and learn how the eco-conscious company of the future looks like, smells like, operates, and presents itself. Their website is www.shaklee.com.

Thanks Krista for pointing out such a good example of what can be done when the right mind set and the right people come together for a common cause and follow their dream with patience, positive energy, and the goal to help each other and everybody else they touch.
Let me know what you think and send me your comments.

Axel Meierhoefer

Eco-consciousness is finding new friends all the time. In my local paper I found the article by Steve Sinovic today. When you wonder what you can do as a city dweller or a person who doesn’t have to drive very far or very fast or justw ants to save some money of commuting costs, you might want to consider. One charge of these new vehicles is less than 10 cents and gets you at least 20 miles through town before recharging is needed.  Steve writes:

“The increased prevalence of scooters on Santa Barbara’s streets is hard to miss. An ever-growing number of residents, many attempting to cut costs and gas emissions in a volatile year for fuel prices and the economy, have traded four wheels for two. It’s a trend particularly evident in the city’s downtown core and around the University of California Santa Barbara campus.

Recently, a new business joined the pack of purveyors of electric- and gas-powered scooters and bicycles. The company, ElectriCruise, has the franchise for Santa Barbara and Ventura counties to sell eGO vehicles, which are manufactured in Boston.

eGo Electric Scooter

Owner Mr. Pacifico, who has backed the venture with his own savings, said he first clapped eyes on the scooters at an electric car show at Cal State in San Luis Obispo. “My wife and I were quite enamored with its simplicity and functionality,” said Mr. Pacifico. He met the other franchise operator up north — there are seven in California — who encouraged him to launch his own enterprise.

“I interviewed them (eGO) on the phone, set up an account to acquire inventory and away we went,” said Mr. Pacifico, who declined to reveal what the franchise fee is and the costs to purchase the vehicles.

Mr. Pacifico

The vehicles, which come in three models, are built to get one person around town. They have a range of up to 25 miles per charge, which makes them perfect for a town like Santa Barbara that’s only 19 square miles.

The scooters sold by Mr. Pacifico have several attractions: it’s legal to ride them on bicycle paths; you can park them at the bike rack; and they produce no emissions. Depending on the model, the vehicles cost from $1,500 to $1,900.

The bike is an anodized aluminum structure, with rigid back frame, an electric motor that produces the equivalent of 2 horsepower, disc brakes up front and caliper brakes in the rear, and weigh, with lead batteries, about 130 pounds. An extended battery kit (in a bag sitting on the floorboards) pushes the bike’s range an extra 20 miles. An extension cord, which can be carried with the bike, lets riders recharge at their destinations before returning home. All three bikes perform the same, he said, since they are built on the same chassis. The two higher-end models have directional signals and a few other bells and whistles.

Extended range battery pack

They’ve certainly have found ardent supporters in Jody Thomas and Bryan Reinhard, two Santa Barbarans who each bought a scooter from ElectriCruise.

A supervisor at the Montecito branch library, Ms. Thomas said she considered several transportation options other than her car before deciding on the eGO. “I didn’t want anything gas powered. Nor did I want to have to pedal each day on a regular bike and arrive at working needing a shower,” said Ms. Thomas, who hops on the “peppy” vehicle each day for her commute from the west side of town, taking mostly bike paths to work. Depending on the elevation, she can zip along between 18-24 miles per hour. “It’s all along the ocean in the morning. It’s a beautiful commute.”

She figures she spends “literally pennies a day” to power the vehicle. Overall, she’s racking up 75 miles a week, including grocery trips, thanks to a collapsible basket.

Mr. Reinhard, a stockbroker, was thinking of purchasing a hybrid electric car, but saw the advertisement for the scooter. “I walked down there, liked it, bought one and drove it home.” Since he started doing most of his commuting on the eGO three months ago, he’s had the brakes adjusted a few times. “Vince doesn’t charge me for the service,” said Mr. Reinhard. “I don’t know what a gallon of gas costs anymore.”

Silver Scooter

This is just one example what you can do to reduce your emissions footprint, have fun, and save money, all at the same time. If you know of any similar stories, elt me know.

Axel Meierhoefer