Diamond-Cut Life

Sustainable Living: More Joy And Less Consumption

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Entries Tagged as 'ethanol'

Cattails, Not Corn, Into Ethanol

December 3rd, 2009 · 11 Comments · energy, global warming and climate change, transportation

You might have already known this, but I did not, and am intrigued to have found out: ethanol, the gasoline substitute that can help the U.S. achieve much-needed energy independence from the volatile Mideast, does not have to be made from corn, at all. That’s good news for two reasons: it takes huge fossil-fuel inputs [...]

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Food For Biofuel? Wrong.

May 8th, 2008 · 4 Comments · food & drink, sustainability, transportation

While President Bush and the biofuel industry are happy with the growth of biofuel, Columbia economics professor Jeffrey Sachs is not. Neither, it seems, are millions in the world currently starving who weren’t starving prior to the push for biofuel. The food riots in at least eight countries over skyrocketing food prices may have been [...]

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Biodiesel Now Yielding 3.5 to 1?

March 11th, 2008 · 2 Comments · food & drink

Some folks are familiar with how we heat our home with biodiesel, with real success. The kind we use is made from vegetable oil that had its first life in restaurants, (and is usually discarded in places less funky and sustainable than Oregon). All of which is another reason I love living here.

My understanding had been that traditional (not recycled) biodiesel was not sustainable, i.e. uses so many fossil-fuel

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Heating Our House With Biodiesel

February 17th, 2008 · 6 Comments · sustainability

I got up at 5 this morning and immediately put on my fleece pants, top and socks. (It’s a bummer that fleece is so great when it’s derived from petroleum). I was still cold so I turned the heat on — not petroleum.

Thor and I have almost pure biodiesel (B99) in our oil furnace. We bought it from Star Oil, who bought it from SeQuential Biofuel. So we’re heating

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