Home Power Magazine - Your Small Scale Renewable Energy (RE) Source. Seeing how we are so dependent on our power, evidenced by yesterday's power outage in the Northeast and Canada, I thought it was apt to dedicate one entry on some information on the net about renewable energy or "green" energy. The people extolling the virtues of guerilla solar power stood out above the rest. Imagine being able to generate power during the day, enough for you, your batteries, and then some. And, imagine being able to "resell" the extra power that you generate and feed it back to the main power grid for others to use! Well, some people have been doing this very thing -- legally and not so legally (hence, the name guerilla solar). Many of the solar power people have cut their energy costs to mere dollars a month because they are able to resell their extra energy.
I'm sure some of you are up on the latest fuel cell technology and the next generation hydrogen power concept car of GM. But for those of us wanting to "make a difference" now and are itching to generate his/her own fuel source for his vehicles, it may be worth it to check out biodiesel. Diesel power is more popular in Europe than it is here in the U.S.; however, consider this, a fuel source that is organic, rather than drilled and mined. Some hardcore hippies wanting to make their own fuel, actually "buy" the used frying fat from restaurants and convert that to diesel! The process is called transesterification, which "means taking a triglyceride molecule, or a complex fatty acid, neutralizing the free fatty acids, removing the glycerin, and creating an alcohol ester." So not only do you get fuel out of the process, but you've also created glycerin which could be used to make soaps (or freeze down your bacteria or whatever else you want to do with it). For those of us who are lab geeks, there are plenty of recipes on the net on how to make biodiesel (check google), but pictures are worth a thousand words. So what do you do with the biodiesel once you've made it? Put it in your vehicle silly! Make sure your engine is diesel, obviously.