Fields of Fuel

First off, I'm not going to do this film justice in any way, shape, or form without holding your hand and taking you down to the theater to watch it full-length. That might be a bit difficult to do, so I'll do my best to try to get you interested in seeing it yourself.

First off, the trailer.

Gina and I really wanted to see this movie, and thanks to Tom getting us tickets at the SFF we were able to go!

"A Crude Awakening" and An Inconvenient Truth" were good and decent, respectively; however, on a scale with the three films together, "Fields of Fuel" is way ahead of the curve. While the first two show us all how screwed up we will be if we don't do anything, they don't offer very many glimpses of hope and they make it seem like there is nothing the individual person can do to help the problem.

Fields of Fuel, on the other hand, offers a very humanizing view of the current energy situation that the US faces. It does not dwell on well-documented but not-quite-proven theories (like the Theory of Global Climate Change and that crazy Theory of Gravity, for instance) but instead focuses on tangible evidence that the way we use energy here in the US is not sustainable and has backed us into a corner that requires immediate change. While some other countries have done this too, we don't live there, we live here and should worry about it here. Josh Tickell then continues on to give the audience various ways in which the individual can make a difference. Below is a list of 10 things he suggests. Not everybody can do all of these right away, but everybody can do at least one of these.

1) Buy a biodiesel, hybrid, electric, or ethanol car
2) Change your fuel to biodiesel, ethanol, or electricity
3) Switch your local school buses to biodiesel
4) Get your gas station to sell biofuel
5) Start a biofuel purchasing co-op
6) Get green energy education into your local schools
7) Use public transportation, bike, or walk
8) Vote for leaders committed to green energy
9) Buy electricity from solar and wind companies
10) Learn more: read Biodiesel America

In the film, Josh gives a very holistic approach to the use of biofuels. He realizes that they are not the ultimate answer, but they are what we can do NOW to get the ball rolling in the right direction. He tells the audience very matter-of-factly that the only way to fix the energy problems in the world is to move towards a diversified energy structure where the energies being used cannot be monopolized by governments or by any one large corporation.

PS, did I mention it received the Documentary Audience Choice Award at Sundance?!

What do you get when...?

What do you get when you combine the following in a German Engineer's stirring pot:

Air
An alternative fuel (biodiesel, BTL, synfuel, etc)
2.2L of sparkplug-free engine displacement
Two turbochargers
A splash of urea
A 7-speed transmission
4 wheels (with all-wheel drive)
And a few other bits and bobs

????

Short answer: Gina's future "mom car," the Mercedes Benz GLK.

Long answer: You get an engine that pulls like a train, has cleaner exhaust than L.A.'s air, has dual stage turbochargers (so you can still have fun), and is quieter than any diesel you've ever heard. And you get that engine with a 7-speed transmission put into a body with all-wheel drive that will tow toys, lug the kids/bikes/dog/skis/etc around, (or if you're the typical American it'll just be lugging you around alone) while already beating the fuel economy standards of the year 2020 (35mpg). The best part? It comes out this fall, so start saving your Benjamins, you'll need about 380 of them, give or take.

VW and TDI marketing

VW has kind of lacked on the marketing for TDI's (diesel engines) in my opinion, but then again I can kind of understand why... They don't need to advertise when most TDI's are sold before they even reach the lot and used ones hold their value so well. Why advertise when more people are trying to buy a TDI than there are TDI's available? Well, they are finally upping the production of TDI engines in multiple models in the near future and more specifically the new Jetta TDI wagen (dubbed the Sportwagen) is set to appear on US roads this fall! So, with the increase in TDI production, they have a reason to start marketing it. I can't wait, if only I could afford one!

And here is the web page that sparked this post And that's right, a true 40-50mpg out of a car that literally hauls! Not to mention it is cleaner than nearly all other cars currently on the road today.

And here they are... t-shirts!

Eddy Merckx (From G)



The "Made by Michelle" Special



The commuter special (Thanks Rich!)



And of course... From Gina

Hebmüller Pre-Filter

I finally got my pre-filter installed on the Jetta. It filters down to about 150 microns, which is not very small for a filter, but the larger filter medium makes sure that I don't lose any flow capacity across the filter element. However it's still small enough to catch any dino-diesel crud left over in my tank that gets cleaned out by the biodiesel before it clogs my main fuel filter. Thus, a clogged main filter is a thing of the past. :-) Had my car been running on biodiesel from the start, there would be no crud in the tank for the biodiesel to clean out so there would be no worry for a clogged main fuel filter.

It is still kind of fun to see the "bean juice" flowing freely into the engine through this clear pre-filter though. It should also help out in the winter when there *might* be a chance of the fuel gelling. This will allow me to see it easily if it happens. The air space in the top is nothing to worry about because it's a low pressure line on these pre-2003 TDI's. If it were a post-2003 engine (PD engine), the line would be pressurized by the tank pump and pump that air pocket right out.

If anyone local is interested, I have some extra filters and high-quality fuel line because I had to buy in bulk. The filter cost me $3.25 each and the hose cost me about $2.00/foot, both prices including shipping. If anybody local wants to put one on your TDI, let me know and you can buy the stuff from me for what I bought it for. Some people don't even put the new fuel hose on, but instead they just cut a section out of their original fuel line and put the filter in place, this works just fine too, but I liked the look of the blue hose, haha.

Biodiesel report

I figure that after 9 1/2 months of having the "ole oil burner" aka "The Jetta" in her new home in SLC that it was time for an update on how she's running. As stated in an earlier post, we found the Jetta on Craigslist after months of searching for a cheap, TDI that I could run on biodiesel. It also took a few months convincing Gina that getting one new car and selling our other two would be worth it. After getting it home, the first few tanks were a B20 blend of biodiesel (20% biodiesel 80% regular diesel) to kind of ease into the whole biodiesel thing. The car had nearly 100,000 miles on it and biodiesel really cleans out the system, so it's not a good thing to make the switch very fast. The weather started to get cold and we had to continue to run B20 until the spring time because a higher percentage of biodiesel would have a problem with the cold weather. So B20 it was throughout the winter, and I was still 80% tied to foreign oil. But, glorious spring time came around and I topped off with B100 (100% biodiesel) from Cardwell Distributing.

It smelled a little vegetable oil-like and not like a fuel at all (which was nice compared to the oily smell of regular diesel), so I pumped it in and drove away happy on a mixture of 100% soy and canola-based biodiesel from Idaho and Colorado. The car immediately quieted down a significant amount and the exhaust was devoid of it's normal slightly pungent diesel aroma in favor of the new cooked vegetable oil fragrance. And it was about $0.05 cheaper than regular diesel at the time to boot!

I can now report that after 21,000 miles on either B20 or B100, the Jetta is still going strong and just ticked over to 120,000 miles. I have performed the regular maintenance with a filter change here and there, an oil change (which only needs to be done ever 15,000 miles BTW), and a timing belt job and that's about it. During this last tank, the weather was extra hot (think A/C on all the time) and we did almost exclusively city driving and we got a horrible 39 MPG. It was the first time we have dipped below the 40 MPG mark, so it was a sad day. On the flip side, here's a shot of our fuel mileage record:



Yep, that's a 53 MPG in the middle there. That was on the way to Durango and back on one tank. Diesels really excel at the freeway driving, so the times where the mileage was high were times when we did a lot of freeway driving. The times when it was low was city driving (which we do more of anyway). What drives me nuts though is the stupid EPA. Just look at these numbers, eek!



Can you believe that? That's the EPA trying to say that my car is supposed to get 38 MPG combined and I actually get about 43 MPG! How can they do that?! The one that irks me the most is the freeway rating. They say the car gets 44 MPG on the freeway, I have never gotten below 50MPG on the freeway and I run a renewable fuel instead of gasoline! I don't understand the EPA sometimes, it's ridiculous. At least they revised the bloated numbers to better reflect the mileage that hybrids get (believe it or not, hybrids do NOT get 60 MPG as Toyota claimed). A prius for example gets a little better mileage than the TDI in the city, but gets worse mileage on the freeway. Hybrid technology is great though, don't get me wrong, although it would be nice if they could run a renewable fuel and still get the same mileage numbers. Can't wait until Europe brings over the diesel-hybrids to replace all the gasoline ones, can you say true 60 MPG combined mileage?

Fort Lewis College Race

We had a great time in Durango even though the trip was super short. We left on Friday, got in late Friday night, hit the sack, got up and raced the team time trial, then the crit, then drove home. It was a lot of fun though, and although I didn't race super well, we had some big mile marks with the car... First off, we passed the 111,111 mile mark on the odometer.







Next up was that we broke 50 MPG average for the whole trip - 53.1 MPG to be exact, which works out to 803.3 miles on one tank! Aren't TDI's amazing. We went from SLC to Durango and back to SLC on one tank of diesel fuel.





Next up was that it was a really fun race, although the TTT was longer than normal at about 20 miles. Later that day was the crit, and lucky enough for me, it rained and even started snowing during my group's race! Needless to say, I got a bit dirty. I finished with the pack, but count that a good finish because there was a short little hill on the course that was an all out sprint up on every lap (every 0.5 miles) for 45 minutes straight. That kicked my butt, but I hung in there. The break away group of 3 got away about half way through and stayed away the rest of the time. They ended up nearly lapping the rest of us. It was a great time though, and we (the U of U team) will probably have a pretty good chance at going to the National Finals race in a couple of weeks. We'll see how we do at Conference Championships though, it's this coming weekend.

Finally, some diesel advertising!

Well, when I came across this site, I just had to post it. In my opinion, the only reason diesels have not taken off in the US is because we rely so heavily on what we're fed by the media in this country. The advertising (about diesels) that comes from manufacturers of diesel cars is nearly non-existent which does not help the situation. The US public is not informed about the cleanliness, power, longevity, and sheer fun of driving an economical diesel-engined car. When compared to gasoline engines, you can look at diesels in two different lights. The first is that because they get 30-50% better fuel economy, you will immediately use 30-50% less fuel while maintaining the same power and torque as a gasoline car. The second way to look at it is that you get 30-50% more power from a diesel engine that gets the same mileage as a gasoline engine. Either way you look at it, it's beneficial to drive a diesel car. Then throw BIODIESEL into the mix and you have a very powerful car that is also running off of a completely renewable, green energy source. There's a statistic that has been quoted stating that if only one in three light trucks (i.e. sport utilities and light-duty pickups) had a diesel engine, we could stop importing oil completely from Saudi Arabia!! Why doesn't the American public realize this? I don't know. In part I think it is because the car manufacturers don't advertise or push the technology enough. The other part is that other technologies (e.g. hybrid) have been put in the limelight and have been falsely praised. They do not get near the MPG that they're rated at (whereas diesels always do) and they're so complex that they're expensive to purchase and build.

It would be so simple for the US manufacturers to start putting more diesels in the cars offered here. In fact, most US manufacturers already offer diesel engines in the same cars in other countries, just not here! The rest of the world is driving around in SUV's that are getting 25 MPG and cars that get over 50 MPG thanks to diesel engines which are not offered here. Everybody says we're addicted to oil, but we are offered no alternatives in this country.

Finally, auto manufacturers are beginning to see the value of diesel technology (just as Europe has for decades) and we're getting some diesel technology offered to us. Many manufacturers are releasing diesel engines in certain models in 2008 that are as clean as gasoline engines! Thanks to brands like Mercedes Benz, VW, and Audi, this is becoming a reality in the US.

Finally got a VW TDI!!

Gina and I finally got a Volkswagen TDI. To be more specific, we got a black Jetta GLS 1.9L TDI. We have been looking for one that we could afford for quite some time now. The problem is the TDI engined cars are hard to find around here, so I mostly looked on ebay, autotrader, and some automotive forums. Finally I decided to just look around on a few of the Craigslist sites for the larger cities. When I checked Dallas I found one that had just been posted only minutes earlier. We quickly called on it and the guy couldn't believe we were so fast! We took the necessary precautions and finally sent him the money, then we had to figure out how to get it home. Shipping it would have cost quite a bit, and after we looked into plane tickets, we found that they were about the same price as shipping it. Gina and I needed a good excuse for a getaway for our 3rd year anniversary too, so that's what we did. We flew to Dallas, picked up the car and drove it 1266 miles home to Salt Lake City. When we got there, I checked the car out with my VAG-COM and laptop and everything checked out. The seller split the cost on a timing belt change with me, so that saved us a bunch in repair costs because it hadn't been done until I told him to do it. I checked the timing with the computer and it was perfect and there were no fault codes. We got in the car and drove away after the final inspection. Filled up at the nearest station and we were on our way.

We drove immediately to the other side (West) of the Dallas-Ft. Worth area and got a hotel. At 5am the next morning we were off to visit Polly (Gina's Aunt) who lives in Lubbock, TX. After the roughly 300 miles to Lubbock, we still had half a tank left, but I was just dying to see what kind of gas mileage we were getting. First half tank was 44MPG. After lunch and a visit with Polly and JoAnn, we were off to Santa Fe. We got to Santa Fe with just a little daylight left so we went into the old town and ate and window shopped a bit, then it was off to our B&B outside the city. It was called Hacienda las Barrancas and it was absolutely beautiful. The stars were amazing as it was a clear night so we sat outside for a bit, then built a fire in our room and went to bed. The next morning we weren't to eager to leave after the wonderful breakfast and great hospitality. We hung out on the property for a while which has amazing views at the end of some short walks. Then it was back in the car to go home. We didn't need to fill up again until Cortez, Colorado. Checking the MPG there, it turns out we averaged about 47 MPG for that tank (mostly 80-85mph).

We hit some crazy hailstorm in Moab but after that it was smooth sailing. The car drove great and feels really solid. It should cut our fuel bill in half, so we are pretty excited. Ahh, the beauty and engineering of a diesel engine! Oh yeah, and it's more fun to drive than the Audi!

Audi Stars and Cars Event

The other night was the Audi Stars and Cars event at Strong Audi here in Salt Lake. They had the new Audi R10 TDI Le Mans racecar there with two of the drivers that won the actual 24 Hours of Le Mans race this past month. My dad and I went to it and it was pretty amazing to see that car up close and personal. It sure is a technological marvel! I won a book signed by Emanuele Pirro and Frank Biela as well as got two free tickets to the practice sessions on Thursday night. It was awesome to hear that car in person. Here's a link to a video of the R10 at the Grand Prix of Utah

and here are some pictures.