Source: www.VeggieVan.org

Q. How did you find yourself promoting biodiesel?

I grew up in the shadow of an oil refinery (literally) in Louisiana. I watched family and friends die of cancer resulting from the unchecked pollution of oil refineries. That predisposed me to looking for alternatives - of every kind from health to energy. But I also grew up building engines and cars. I loved turning wrenches and making things work. So when I saw biodiesel being used on a farm in former East Germany, I knew I was looking at a lot more than just a farmer fad.

I came back to the US, started researching the diesel engine and discovered that Rudolf Diesel actually invented his engine to be compatible with vegetable oil fuel over 100 years ago. (This part is in my current book). From there, I was on a fast track to buying a used motor home and traveling the US on biodiesel from used cooking oil. Seven years and a lot of handshakes later, I find myself becoming the spokesperson of an industry that has the potential to redefine how we look at energy, politics, power and war.

Q. So what exactly IS biodiesel, anyway?

Source: www.VeggieVan.org

Biodiesel is a fuel made from vegetable oil that works in any diesel engine with NO MODIFICATIONS to the engine. Sorry about the caps, but almost 100% of the people I speak with misunderstand biodiesel - because it is the ONLY renewable or alternative fuel that you can just pour into an existing vehicle.

Also, biodiesel mixes in any ratio with petroleum diesel. Biodiesel can be made from any vegetable oil or animal fat. It is biodegradable, drinkable and safe for use in sensitive environments such as near reefs (or humans).

Q. Which vehicles can biodiesel be used in?

Volkswagon Jetta Source: VW.com

Any diesel vehicle including most trucks, buses, boats, aircraft and trains. If you mean personal vehicles, the rub is that less than 2% of personal vehicles in the US are diesels. Right now, you can buy a VW diesel Jetta or a VW diesel Bug. You can also buy a diesel CDI Mercedes (expensive). Or a diesel truck such as a Dodge or Ford. Diesel Mercedes vans are also now available via the Dodge Sprinter brand. Of course, eBay is your friend here as there are a lot of used diesels on the market. (search for ‘diesel’ or ‘diesel vw’ for example).

Q. How much does biodiesel cost to buy? Or to make?

Right now, biodiesel is running about 1 cent more per percentage per gallon you use. Let me explain that a bit better. If you use a blend of 1% biodiesel with 99% diesel, it will be 1 cent more expensive per gallon. In contrast, 100% biodiesel is running about one dollar more per gallon.

To make biodiesel yourself, say from free used cooking oil, it has a total cost of about $0.50/gal. (50 cents per gallon). Why the disparity? Well, as with other industries, the cost of labor, inputs, employees, etc. makes the difference between store-bought and home made.

When you buy petroleum at a gas station, you pay a falsely DEFLATED price. Meaning, the price you pay, say $2/gal, is about half of what petroleum costs. The hidden costs of petroleum (oil subsidies, military in the mid-east, inflated health costs, the cost of the national debt and deficit) all come from your taxes at the end of the year. How much did you pay in taxes? Divide you tax bill by ½ and add that amount to your fuel bill for a year. (The average person uses about 1,000 gallons of fuel a year.) Now, does biodiesel still look expensive?

Q. How is biodiesel sustainable?

Whoa! OK. Sit down. Here we go. Let’s divide sustainability into three categories: social sustainability, economic sustainability and ecological sustainability. If a process or a product is all three, then it is also profitable. Shocking, I know - mixing sustainability and money. But here’s a critical point of ecological theory that most people miss - long term economics (not short term returns or stock portfolios, but the real long term economy of a society) and sustainability are the same thing. Money is really based on the sustainability of an economy, or the ability of a given population to sustain itself. This is why populations with the strongest sustainability indices have historically had the strongest currencies. Hence, the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. Hence, the rise (and fall?) of the United States. We’re watching the US dollar devaluate now because our economy has become unsustainable. It relies on foreign inputs at almost every level. And that’s the key - inputs.

To truly sustain, to perpetually keep going, means that inputs in a system must be also sustainable. And the only way to produce both sustainable inputs and sustainable outputs (products) is to create a cycle. This is how nature works - in cycles. Western mechanics, which once adopted the idea that humans were above nature, has now come to the brink of the realization that we can’t live without nature and that if we can’t create sustainable life systems, we will extinguish ourselves. No ‘developed’ society has grasped this brutally simple concept. Which is why the inevitability of resource depletion in developed societies leads to the process of procuring more resources from other people (a.k.a. “war”). The bottom line here is that the devolution of modern societies into war machines is due to a lack of sustainable economic planning. If we look at the only true source of energy (income) we have - the sun - we realize that every available watt of energy we need for every one of our planets’ inhabitants falls freely from the sky every day. Our laziness in harnessing that energy is no excuse for wars, or terrorism or reactionary politics. It only speaks to the rudimentary nature of our development as a social species.

Biodiesel is not perfect, but it exemplifies the type of cyclical ‘Biomimicry’ or mimicking of nature, that we need to survive as a 6.5 billion person population on this little spaceship.

Q. Speaking of biodiesel not being perfect, what about the negative impacts of intensive agriculture? I can't help but worry that if biodiesel from plants was a hit, American soil would suffer unprecedented amounts of erosion, nutrient pollution, and habitat loss. Do you ever worry about that too? If so, how do you reconcile these concerns with your promotion of biodiesel?

Well, let me ask you a question. Are you familiar with the negative impacts of petroleum use? I’m being stone cold serious here. Because I get into a lot of didactic conversations about GMO’s and sustainable crop use and farming. And most of the people I speak with wouldn’t know a farm if it hit them in the face. Seriously, in a worst-case scenario, biodiesel and crop-based fuels may mean that we have to look very carefully at how we use our land resources. Scary right? Well, what if I told you that in order to drive your car this year, you had to serve for two months on the front lines in Iraq - you know that little sandy nation that sits on top of the second largest oil field on the planet and is now in the middle of a 2,000 year-old holy war?

Now, the practical questions: are we growing sustainably harvested, organic, non-GMO crops for biodiesel today? No. Could we? Yes. What’s it going to take for that to happen? Well, first, we might consider the fact that the US uses about 200 billion gallons of petroleum annually and produces less than 20 million gallons of biodiesel (0.02%). That inequity in consumer demand (i.e. your demand) means that biodiesel is a fledgling industry and is using conventional agriculture methods to survive. In time, with consumers behind it, biodiesel can be the most sustainable fuel source in America.

Q. How does your organization, VeggieVan, contribute?

We're a non-profit advocacy group formed to move America toward petroleum independence. We promote biodiesel because we see it as the most practical, viable, usable-today alternative to petroleum that exists. It’s real, it’s here and it just takes a phone call to begin using it. Compare that to Bush’s Hydrogen Economy and you’ve got a real winner. To give you an idea of what we do in a month, last month we:

• Received confirmation that our efforts to contact Neil Young (a project that has been in progress for over a year) paid off. Neil read From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank and began using biodiesel in all 20 of his tour vehicles!
• Showed the Veggie Car at the NBB Biodiesel Expo in Palm Springs, CA
• Completed filming for the fundraising trailer for our film, Fields of Fuel
• Sent out email newsletters to 20,000 people
• Finished working with The National Geographic Channel’s 60 min. documentary entitled “Green Cars” due to air in May
• Entered discussions with The National Geographic Channel & The Discovery Channel for broadcast of our upcoming 90 min. documentary film, Fields of Fuel
• Attended the Sedona Film Festival, showing our short film, The Veggie Van Voyage and raising the interest of representatives from Eastmann Kodak

Joshua and his VeggieCar --another example of biodiesel at work. Source: VeggieVan.org

Q. What is your vision? In other words, what exactly do you hope that your work will accomplish?

I want:

1) The American public to realize that they have been sold a mistruth - that oil is a drop in the bucket of potential energy available to us; that we have used 85% of our domestic petroleum reserves and that the largest oil field on earth lies under Saudi Arabia and the second largest field is in Iraq (but there is no connection to that and our military involvement in the Middle East, of course).

2) America to embrace biodiesel and immediately begin using it in its diesel fleets - especially in school buses.

3) Biodiesel to act as a spark to ignite a generation of people passionate about finding solutions to our coming oil and energy crises

Q. What kinds of people (that you come across in your work) really tick you off?

The only people who might, maybe, once in a while, if I’m really pressed for time or have had a string of sleepless working nights, get me, are people who don’t ask questions and just believe everything they read on the Internet and on TV. The information is out there to make our country and this world a very workable place. But you’ve got to put down your remote control, stop drinking that caffeinated beverage, put down the sugar snack, walk around (to restore some semblance of natural circulation and blood flow) and read something that wasn’t printed on your screen, magazine paper or newsprint.

That’s not to say you should come to my web site, click on ‘ask a question,’ and ask the first thing that comes to your mind (unless, of course, it is, “How do I make out my donation check?/How do I take you and your crew out for dinner and drinks?/How do I get you on the Oprah Show?/How do we spell your name for the Oscar?” etc.) And the reason you shouldn’t is because we have an FAQ, a 200+ page web site, a book, a video, a DVD - I’ll stop here but you get the idea. My point is that I think people - especially ‘activists’ need to be more proactive in getting their facts straight before they open their mouths.

Q. Do you ever experience burn-out? If so, what motivates and inspires you to keep going?

I’m human. I burn out. I get furious. I get tired. I get lonely (hence all the trips to Vegas and all the suspicious Internet charges). Just kidding - no, really, I’m joking on that one. I am. Anyway, yeah, I run into a wall sometimes. And then … I go surfing or go for a walk or just shut off all the computers and declare a new holiday (“National Biodiesel Freaks Day” hasn’t caught on yet, but just you wait - it’s a winner), or I call my mom. Yes, it’s true. I call my mom. And she knows before I even say anything. It’s been a dammed awful day. And you know what she does? I have no clue what she does because I talk for like an hour. Maybe she does the laundry, maybe a crossword puzzle. But she at least pretends to be interested. And then, when I’m done ranting, and there’s that long awkward silence, she’ll say something like, “Sounds like you’ve had a lot on your mind.” And we’ll say our goodbyes and I’ll walk down to the beach and watch the sunset. Because after all, we do live in one of the most beautiful times imaginable on what is presumably one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy, and, God, it’s good to be alive.

To learn more about biodiesel, Joshua's organization has put together an incredible crash course at www.veggievan.org/biodiesel/index.php.

You might also be interested in the VeggieVan Organization's series of books and DVD's, especially From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank, and free articles, too.

Last updated: 4/19/2004