A handful of students at Washington State University are trying to take their energy future into their own hands. While the WSU Biodiesel Club only got about 10 members at their first meeting this week, organizers hope that the student-run operation soon will be producing 200 gallons of the green fuel a day.
This story from the student paper, The Daily Evergreen, says once they start making a profit, the club’s first order of business is to pay back benefactor Bob Richards, who has put $4,000 of his own money into the idea:
So far, all members of the club are engineering majors currently attending WSU.
“There’s really no qualifications necessary to be a part of this club,” [Nate Storrs, a sophomore mechanical engineeering major and a member of the Biodiesel Club] said. “It was just by chance that we are all of the same major. Really we’re just looking for people who would be willing to devote time and energy into a process that they believe to be worthy.” However, not just anyone can hop onto a machine and make biodiesel. Before production can start, members will need to take a hazardous materials course as well as read up on materials that are on the material safety datasheet, to prevent problems down the line. Once preparation is done, the actual production of biodiesel is simple, Smith said. “All it really takes is cleaning out the oils and grease and then mixing it with methanol and potassium hydroxide, and after a heating process you create usable biodiesel,” Smith said.
If you’re on the campus in Pullman, check out the Biodiesel Club at 5:30 p.m. at the Sloan Hall second-floor lounge.
During this week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new National Biodiesel Board building in Jefferson City, those in attendance included local and state officials and nine members of the Board from around the country.
Oklahoma might be famously known for its “winds that come sweepin’ down the plains,” and one of the leading universities in the state is going to put that to work.
“It is our patriotic duty as Americans to help our country achieve energy independence,” Boren said at a news conference at OU. “We should become a national role model for the environment.”
This week, Belgian professor and so-called United Nations “expert” Olivier de Schutter tried to blame the rise in food prices on biofuels. But Jobe fought back with the best weapon available: 
While the soaring price of oil is overwhelmingly recognized as the major factor driving food price increases, biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel have had a marginal effect on the increase in food prices in the U.S. – about four to five percent – according to the U.S. Department of Energy and the USDA.
Jenna Higgins Rose, the friendly communications director at NBB, gave me the “nickel tour” (although it didn’t cost a dime!) of their new digs. That’s Jenna on the right, showing me the new conference room with a state-of the art video conferencing system with the NBB’s office in Washington, DC (that’s a picture of the DC office on the screen). This is just one example of how the good folks at NBB are really practicing what they preach. Doing a conference over a video conference saves them not only thousands of dollars and many hours of travel time, but they greatly reduce their carbon footprint by not burning the fuel needed to fly to the various locations that this truly national organization covers.
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“The goal is to determine the best crop management, storage and handling practices for Georgia, and just as important, the performance of herbaceous biomass in Range Fuels’ conversion process,” said Anna Rath, Ceres vice president of commercial development. She noted that grass species, including both annuals and perennials, can provide a flexible and reliable supply of raw materials for fuel and power. “This is an important step in demonstrating that energy crops can be successfully and sustainably grown in the area surrounding the Range Fuels Soperton Plant site,” she said.
Florida Governor Charlie Crist says an ethanol plant may be built on land that the state is buying from U.S. Sugar to use for Everglades restoration.
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke to the NFU members by phone and pledged his support for new investments in renewable fuels and other policies that would benefit rural America. Obama also reiterated his support of the Renewable Fuels Standard. “I am strongly committed to advancing biofuels as a key component of reducing our dependence on foreign oil,” he told the NFU members.