Betty Biodiesel's Blog

1st Annual Sunflower Ball and Benefit, April 10, 2010

Celebrating Lindsay’s 40th birthday,

Benefitting the Betty Biodiesel Organization

The benefit will feature:

YOU dressed in colorful costumes that depict what spring feels like to you

6:00-8:00   Global Fusion Dinner Must Register (pre-pay ideal)

8:00-9:00   Brian Baker: guitar-ssionist: a percussionist on the guitar

9:00-1:00   Dancing with DJ Dragonfly’s Global Grooving Sounds

Dinner $20

Dancing $10

Dinner and Dancing $25

REGISTER/ BUY TICKETS

There will be a Silent Auction for those who wish to support our youth,  donations needed

Volunteers needed to help with decor, tickets,        dinner, etc.

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There I was happily doing the dishes when my friend Greg popped his head up the the window. We chatted a bit and wham he said it, “the planet will survive the issue is the people”. Any science class will tell you that the earth has undergone many transformations. There was the ice age where our earth was covered in sheets of glacial ice, the dinosaur age where dinasouars and about 70% of all life species died due to volcanic and asteroid activity.

So here we are in 2009 and when it gets to 3009 what will the history look like. Will it be like those sci fi movies we’ve seen where New York is eerily covered in water or ice or robots come back to the planet to roam the antiquated artifacts of our time? Who knows but what we do know and what the left, eco, environmental, etc. movement needs to come to grips with is a relanguaging of how we sell the urgency of needing to take care of our earth. It seems quite neglectful of our human species to simply say, “Save the Earth”, when what we really mean is take care of the planet so we can save the human species and the animal and plant species that we rely on.

This blog is part two in a call for the relanguaging of the movement to change our consumptive, greedy and exploitive ways. The first blog related to this was the way the green movement encourages people change our burning of fossil fuels. We actually use the word “Fight Global Warming” when there isn’t anything to fight, except ourselves.

In all the therapy I’ve done, the one thing I know about myself is if I am beating myself up with a negative thought bat then it is time to stop, put down the bat and check in with how much I do love myself. I invite us all to take this to a global level, and dig deep in the request to be grateful for where we have been, what we have done as a culture and begin to recognize ways to change the behaviors that will not bring about supporting ourselves, the plants and the animals. I add these plants and animals as reminders that without these we humans would not exist, plain and simple.

I am baffled as to why we still objectify the whole experience we find ourselves in by saying “save the planet” as if the planet was not us. We are intrinsicly dependent on the planet, however the planet is not dependent on us. Take this another way, what if the planet was a living organism (the gaia theory suggests this) and without us humans the planet would not be able to express its amazing bounty without our manipulations of it. This is how we get all the products, transportation, etc., through invention of the humans inquiring deep into ourselves and coming up with ways to produce, be mobile and create our future.

The question is…Is what we are creating going to bring about the death of human, plant and animal species as we know it and if so why is that so bad or good?

Recently I have begun to explore the language we use and I have become aware of the simple irony in the statement  “Fight Global Warming”. For these are the words used by leaders of the movement to impress upon people the need to change course. Could fighting actually be at the source for this pollution, for this massive use of resources, for this abuse in policy towards our environment, and those who inhabit it?

Everything we need to learn we learned in kindergarten and the biggest lesson I recall my teachers saying was to share and be nice to one another. Meanwhile, thousands of flyers, posters, handbills, etc. get printed with “Fight Global Warming” as a call to what beating up ourselves or the air. How about picking up the mighty hands and punch oneself for we are the people who gets in the car, turns on the light, uses a toilet, eats meat, buys clothes from a large mall who gets their goods from a far away place and lays our heads down on a pillow of synthetic oil just to get up and do it all over again the next day.

I offer that instead of using the words “Fight Global Warming” we turn to such vernacular as “Transform ourselves”, offer “Fierce Love and Compassion” to one another and above all “Communicate” about solutions so that we change from being “Consumers” to “Solutionaries” and finally “Accept” ourselves and each other for the mistakes we and our ancestors have made and begin to “Clean Up” our mess.

I stand for the conversation that brings us to the place where we hold ourselves accountable in a loving non-judgemental way and begin to make choices from that place. Fighting and the language of fighting is mired in the male dominant patriarch paradigm, leaving me uninspired to take action. Wanting something to change and using the same language as that which got us into the problem is insanity. We are living in the insane construct with language being the achilles heel.

To CHANGE our our planet is to CHANGE our language.

Lindsay Hassett

Change Agent #9 aka Betty Biodiesel, Sister Solar and more to come

After spending the last 6 years answering all kinds of questions about renewable fuels, I thought I’d put my blog into action and answer some of the most common questions I have been asked from all kinds of people, with different political views and backgrounds.

This question…hemp for ethanol production begs for some backing up to really flush out the need for everyone to be on the same page with what biofuels are:

Biofuels is a name given to any fuel made from renewable resources such as plants, waste, and the sun. The term biofuels usually refers to the liquid fuel market leaving natural gas, propane, electricity, etc. out of the disucssion.

Here is a quick map to better understand biofuels (a term used to commonly refer to Ethanol).

Our world is a world addicted to liquid fuel. While there are many questions about what is the right fuel to use (I’ll handle that question in a later blog titled “which one”) The key to answering the hemp for ethanol production question is to discover that:

There are commonly two types of engines that use liquid fuel: Gas and Diesel

Each engine has their perspective renewable fuel: Ethanol and Biodiesel

Each renewable fuel has a specific medium to make it: Sugar/ Starch and Vegetable Oil/Animal Fat

Each Medium has its feedstock: Ethanol (Corn, Sugar beets, jerusalem artichokes, etc) Biodiesel (soy oil, Waste restaurant oil, sunflower oil, canola oil, animal fat, etc.)

In remembering how good my cereal tastes with Hemp protein on it and that there is a hemp oil, my response is that I think that with the current state of hemp being illegal it would prove better to use the hemp plant for all of its protein and fiber quality rather than making alternative fuel out of it. In 2005, I saw my first veggie oil conversion on a diesel and they were driving around the US on Hemp oil, shipped in from Canada. So the reality is that with Hemp being so controlled it would be too expensive to make ethanol from Hemp in this current state of legality. However, if there is a way to produce fiber for clothing, food, and other products from Hemp and there was leftover material there is a chance that a new process called cellulosic ethanol (not even launched yet) would be able to take all the Hemp material not already used and convert it into sugars to process it into an alcohol.

Thank you for your question and feel free to send more…Betty Biodiesel

I just sent a letter to the U.S. EPA asking the agency to allow California and 16 others states to implement higher auto emissions standards. These states are ready to take action now to reduce the pollutants linked to global warming and breast cancer — but the EPA won’t let them.

I encourage you to ask the EPA to reconsider its denial to the states. It’s in the best interest of our health and our environment.

Write to the EPA at http://www.breastcancerfund.org/emissions.

Here is what I added. A bit of a diatribe but has some truth aspects to it.

The EPA is our governmental body that is set up by the people for the people and the people want more efficiency, if not for the environment and the people that live within it but for the US to be able to compete in the global car market. The rest of the world is increasing efficiency and making us look like idiots with our cheap gas and low MPG and by the way they are selling these cars like crazy, just take one look at the Prius…it’s everywhere. This is a sign that people want it and the more the EPA (our protective agency) says no the more you look connected or “in bed” with the large corporations.

I am frustrated that my tax money goes to the salaries of the people that work for the EPA making these kind of bad decisions. Besides the way it is set up it’s like the state of CA (the kid in this story) is having to ask the EPA (the authority) for a hall pass. This is bad parenting and needs to be redirected to YES WE WILL ALLOW YOU CA (the Kid) TO DO WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR STATE.

I’m curious, how does the oilagarchy feel about CA, the 5th largest economy in the world, wanting to make a move that would help the people and the environment and cut into their profits…but then again isn’t that what the “no” is about. Keep digging deep for the reality of things and make your move for the people and planet leaving profit last for a change.

I wish to start this blog off with a story:
Once upon a time in 2000, I was told that Shaklee, the company my Mom had a business with, was providing these things called offsets. I was somewhat aware of the earths crisis and became intrigued by this offset where you enter in the amount of miles I drove, miles I flew, and amount of energy I used in the home. After calculating these amounts up popped an image of about 40 trees that needed to be planted to offset my carbon as well as a price tag of $80 needed to make that tree planting project work. I paid $40 for half of the trees since I was about to be a student and money was tight but felt good knowing that I could make a difference with the energy I had emitted from my around the world travels via airplane. I was hooked and then Shaklee took the calculator away from the site and I was left wondering if that kind of service would come back again. In 2003, I learned of Bonneville Foundation and was happy to see “green Tags” making a way into the market so I bought some more of those, got my sticker and went happily on my way of still driving my car which was now running on biodiesel. Now in 2007 there are dozens of way to offset, people driving around with bumper sticker and license plate covers that all say something to the effect of this car is climate neutral or green house gas neutral. These dozen green tag/carbon offset companies are connecting the funds generated from these tags to wind, solar, methane recovery and tree projects to continue the race to reverse climate change. You can even offset your flying miles directly with Travelocity. Unfortunately the political leadership is frozen in an ice age of stupidity till November 2008 unless congress can change that.
Now enter my dear green friends who when bringing up this concept of Carbon offsets complain that they are just a lazy approach to this problem. I completely agree that we do need massive conservation effort and we’ve been getting this message from the environmental community right along with the message of buying a new car. The way I see it is this, if people are driving around and aren’t paying for it via offsets isn’t that like saying the price we give on the environment is $0.00? I also know that if people really understand what they are using individually they have a better chance of making changes. Meanwhile, when they pay $28 for a carbon offset (the price of my car running on 40 mpg for 10K miles) instead of $0 that money goes to make these carbon reducing projects happen. These projects include: Solar, wind, methane recovery and tree planting to name a few and the numerous offset companies are providing us all an opportunity to do something with our use and abuse.

So now this industry is gaining momentum but it is still going through growing pains including:
-    education of what a carbon offset is
-    every offset company offers a different fee for the credits
-    3rd party certification is crucial for the integrity of these credits and is unfortunately getting overlooked by some people buying credits.
-    Terminology needs to be clearly defined for the lay person
Etc.
No industry before has come close to directly linking our economic system to our ecological life support system, aka Earth. I was reminded by Lynn Twist (guru of fundraiser from the heart), that humans were the life forms that created this money in the first place to help a very complex system of trading goods and services, however the intent of making our lives more simple got off track somewhere along that path thus we have an imbalance of priorities and the way money works for us.

I am passionate about our environment getting a price tag on it. I feel it is both necessary and nauseating at the same time. As a long time capitalist, I can see our human need to maintain the status quo by not attacking the very system that drove us to this place of utter earth abuse. As a human it is ludicrous to place a price tag on our life support system…money shouldn’t be involved. But where to go from here?

I say reduce your driving, by carpooling, taking transit, riding a bike, walking, etc. and when you can’t or won’t, buy offsets to invest in a different future. The more voluntary offsets are purchased the more carbon and methane recovery projects occur, the less greenhouse gas emissions enter our atmosphere and louder the message of people investing in change reaches our leaders of this nation and the world.

After ready about another attack in Iraq where 9 children died I write this blog…

Amazing to me how a woman who gestates for 9 months can fathom her child taken from her by a bullet from a supposed anti-terrorist group. She can’t fathom it, all she sees and feels every waking day after the death of her child is exactly that terror that we are trying to stop, or are we.
Are we simply packing this so called war on terrorism like we package everything else in America? Do you want that Small. Medium, Large, Extra large, or Supersized.

We the people of this country are getting dumbed down, overplayed, patronized and belittled by our own people. Being in the advertising industry myself, I was nauseated to see how much we have reduced our individual uniqueness down to buying patterns, ratings, polls, stats, and colorful ads that dig deep into our abused psyche. The more we are dumbed down, the more the slick advertisers have us by our minds and pocketbooks. And in my little world of Go Green, shop local, buy organic, go vegetarian, go raw, cleanse, reduce, reuse, recycle, I meet others that are doing some if not all of these things and think “wow we really have a chance”, then I board public transit, get a whiff of “Chemie” cologne from a guy going down the aisle carrying two plastic bags filled with personal items from Rite Aid and think, “wow we have a far far way to go”.

Back to the kids…they deserve more, they deserve better than allowing their sweet innocent bodies to get killed by our insane quest for control over resources that is an end game. This quest is simply the visual ugliness in addiction. The addict in total denial about to have a serious wake up call, oh wait that’s what New Orleans was and yet we still forge ahead in clearing Iraq of its terrorists…has anyone ever thought of us in fact being the ones that provoke terror. I know that “Secure the area” = blow it all up, riddle it with bullets while our 18 year old soldiers play Black Sabbath on their ipods as if they were in a video game totally unconnected to reality.  Yet they too pay a price. We see it in the stories of the guys that get home. Finally here maybe missing a limb here or there, troubled with PTSD, finding “home” to be a joke compared to where they were just at. Meanwhile we talk of Iraq like it is this other place, this shithole for our boys to experience the world get totally f____d in the head and never imagine it for its beauty. The crafting, the food, the people, the kids. The second we summarize Iraq into one category we summarize all of humanity into that category. It’s like categorizing all Californians as blonde surfers who have beautiful bodies and hang out on the beach everyday. Or take this radical perspective and imagine humans from a lab rats perspective…who are we to them? put aside for a moment the blah blah story of how their testing helps us and really get into their reality or an Iraqi child for that matter. We are not leading, we are killing, maiming and continuing in our denial.

Somewhere in all of this dismay, disbelief and what I call unfathomable, I think to myself what am I doing about it? First, I think alot and then I think not enough. Writing this blog is a start because if it reaches one person who feels the same way and chooses to do something about it then it is worth it. If it reaches no one and helps me through the immediate pain of hearing about people especially children dying from bullet wounds then it is worth it. I have pain in my jaw and heartache in my heart for the way humanity treats one another and all other forms of life and I have to include myself in this harm for if I drive my car even if on biodiesel, I contribute to the use of roads, oil, metal, energy use, etc. All the things that create resource wars. So what do I do. I sell my car and challenge myself to get around by public transportation, which is not everywhere I want to go. Or I keep my car and pay money into offsetting the carbon I emit as well as offset the carbon I emitted since birth. But let’s not stop at the carbon offset, how about a social costs for kids that get maimed and are still alive, wouldn’t they need help? I could pay money into a orphanage that helps kids that are maimed by the war, or help returning vets with getting healing treatments. I could put my time and energy into so many things that are restorative rather than harmful. This is the shift we have been waiting for and I’ve been waiting to write this piece to get a reminder of that.

HI this is Lindsay aka Betty Biodiesel chiming in with a lengthy dialogue about the use of including call out for a gathering of the biodiesel minds, an Econ 101 reality check, and a reward at the bottom for all to take part in. I want to start off by offering some background on the rendered grease industry. I was made aware by Eric Bowen, that back in the 70’s renderers were paying to take the waste grease from restaurants. Once cheap palm oil entered the scene it was easier to get cheap feedstock for animal fee, makeup, heating oil, etc. This is when renderers started charging to collect to cover costs. Now however with the advent of the biodiesel industry we are seeing that sway back to the benefit of the restaurant (which if you ask me is one of the riskiest ventures one could start). So now we have individuals offering .20 gal, picking it up for free, etc. This shift of course will send waves into all industries as the demand for the same commodity increase. I believe some of us saw the writing on the wall years ago of the grease grab coming to fruition. Now enter Blue Sky Biofuels or any other grease collector for biodiesel who is building a sizeable facility in the bay or NCA. Blue Sky’s mission is to produce high quality Biodiesel from waste grease for use in school buses Our reasoning for school buses is this, if an area can only produce X amt of recycled feedstock (let’s say 2-5 million gallons per year) then where should it go first? Our kids. I have seen very little in the biodiesel industry communicated about “first use” but as enviros, sustainability nuts, this is a very important focus to have. There is much information and scientific study about why our kids need it first and I will leave that for you to research at www.biofuels4schools.org. However, if you know any kid with asthma that rides the school bus, get them to use a carbon filter mask from icanbreathe.com and that should help the breathing, but not the teasing. Unfortunately the “first use for school buses” leaves the individual car user way last on the receiving line. If you follow any of the recommendations for global change, personal car use is the first to be raised as the biggest contributor. (15 billion gallons of gas are used yearly in CA, and we are 2nd to the nation for fuel consumption…any change here sends out a large message). But I digress… Biodiesel sales in the bay area are going up and up 90% of the biodiesel is coming from midwest soy, (thank you ladies at biofuel Oasis for buying recycled as well as Yokayo for making it) Which by the way, the reason why no one is making biodiesel from virgin soy in CA is due to cost per lb being .10 higher than it was a year ago, making it ridiculous to make biodiesel in CA using that feedstock. What we have is an Econ 101 issue, increase in demand and decrease in supply, meanwhile tack on and additional angle of “first use”, the fact that CA land is pricey and no virgin oil is grown here, and what you have left are people doing the math and paying restaurants for their waste grease. Believe me, Blue Sky would rather charge for their grease but in most cases, we have to pick it up for free and rarely do we pay if any at all because we don’t want to start that slippery slope and yet market indicators are such that it is heading BACK to that way, like it or not. However another important thing to bring up is while this listserve serves a good purpose in getting dialogue started, I do remember when the leaders of the NCA Biodiesel industry wouldn’t wait for BBI or the NBB to host a conference to get together and discuss this Biodiesel movement in CA. I remember meetings for the biodiesel council, biofuel oasis, the summit, etc. These were very important times for people to get together and talk. In 2002/03, I was just a little bitty sunflower growing and Yokayo was selling biodiesel in 55 gallon drums delivered at no extra cost. NOW 5 years later, we are all maturing in our business models, our experience, more funding is entering the “biofuels” industry than ever before. CARB, the one that was so against biodiesel years ago, is now shelling out millions in grants to biodiesel manufacturers and has committed funding to test the blends. In fact, I get an interested investor a week emailing me about investing in a Biodiesel facility and hear monthly of other biodiesel plants interested in setting up shop in the bay area. Understandable, as the realities of Global warming are sending politicians scrambling, which sends the money managers calling and it is all starts sounding like the 12 days of biodiesel. On that note, I would like to co convene a Bay Area Biodiesel meeting, long overdue to have WVO users, biodiesel users, restaurants, biodiesel manufacturers, fleet operators, school districts, etc. be at the table. If this kind of meeting doesn’t happen, then we all continue to scurry around in our own small world unaware of what each of us is doing. So if you’ve read this far and are interested in assisting with such a meeting please email me. It is possible we could host something at the PG&E building, a library, etc. I hope what I have written here was worth the read and I look forward to continued dialogue around this issue that affects all of us, even if we have self identified with a company, group, etc. We are all still human beings trapped in this capitalistic system that needs a serious swift kick in the a_ _ to make real change happen. Also, I’ve noticed in the last year I have had to use terms like WVO, UCO, IKG, FOG, Yellow Grease, Brown Grease, etc. and I think it is good for us in the industry to come to consensus on what these terms actually mean, where they were generated from, etc. Imagine teaching your grandman about these terms. I’d like to think of this term sheet as a work in progress. I’ll be the keeper of the list to edit and rephrase, and send back out after we’ve all had a chance to send it our edits. So send in your edits and any terms I forgot to mention. FOG- Fats, Oils and Grease. A term used widely by municipalities or governing bodies that deal with sewers. When they say they have a FOG problem it refers to the fact that millions are putting used cooking oil down the drain and clogging up our sewers, costing millions of dollars in clean up. IKG- Inedible Kitchen Grease- That grease which comes directly from the restaurant unfiltered or processed. UCO- Used Cooking Oil- Same as IKG but also used in official licensing documents for transporting this oil. Waste Grease- same as IKG but used among the WVO users and biodiesel industry. WVO – Wast Vegetable Oil- Same as IKG but heavily used in the WVO industry. Yellow Grease- IKG, UCO, or WVO that has been picked up, transported, filtered, heated blended, etc by a renderer and now available for sale to feed lots, makeup manuf., shipped off to Asia for heating oil use, etc. This is a commodity that is sold globally. This is considered recycled content and gets .50/gal for making Biodiesel. Brown Grease-This is actually gray in color and is the FOG that gets caught up in sewer lines and wreaks havoc. This is the stuff that made the SFPUC focus on collecting waste grease and soon starting a residential program to have people stop putting their UCO down the drain. White Grease- Virgin animal fat coming from meat plants or renderers and is considered agri biodiesel and gets the 1.00 per gallon tax credit