Inhabitat September 9, 2009 - First Algae-Powered Car Attempts to Cross US on 25 Gallons by Ariel Schwartz

September 9, 2009

First Algae-Powered Car Attempts to Cross US on 25 Gallons

by Ariel Schwartz

Just yesterday San Francisco saw the unveiling of the world’s first algae fuel-powered vehicle, dubbed the Algaeus. The plug-in hybrid car, which is a Prius tricked out with a nickel metal hydride battery and a plug, runs on green crude from Sapphire Energy — no modifications to the gasoline engine necessary. The set-up is so effective, according to FUEL producer Rebecca Harrell, that the Algaeus can run on approximately 25 gallonsfrom coast to coast!

“Powering our cars with algae-based fuel could be the next Apollo mission.” That’s what Rebecca Harrell, co-founder of the Veggie Van Organization and producer of the upcoming film FUEL, told me yesterday in front of San Francisco’s City Hall. Over the next 10 days she’ll be joined by Fuel director and Veggie Van Organization cofounder Josh Tickell as they take the Algaeus, along with a caravan of other green energy vehicles (including the Veggie Van and the biodiesel-powered big green energy bus), on a cross-country road trip. “It hit us that we needed to drive the car across the country,” Harrell said. “People think of algae fuel as this long-term, far off thing. But seeing is believing.”

And of course, the cross-country tour will also serve to promote FUEL, a film about America’s ongoing dependence on foreign oil. Unlike many environmentally-themed films that serve up upsetting bits of information without offering concrete solutions (An Inconvenient Truth, anyone?), FUEL discusses the ways that we can transition away from oil right now. “What’s important for everyday people is information. People don’t say ‘Can you give me something else to be scared about?’ They say, ‘How can I get my car to run on algae fuel?’, Tickell explained.

Green crude won’t be sold at your local gas station any time soon — Sapphire Energy is ramping up production of algae-based jet fuel this year, with plans to produce 2 million gallons of algae-based diesel fuel each year in the next two years–but eventually the company expects that green crude will be cost-competitive with fossil fuels. And while the Algaeus only runs on a 5% blend of algae fuel, Harrell and Tickell hope that the vehicle can prove to consumers that green fuel solutions are on the horizon. “Up until now the environmental movement has been reactionary. We have no discourse about energy,” Tickell said.” And we want to shift that.”

FUEL will be released in New York City, San Francisco, Berkeley, and Washington DC on September 18th.

+FUEL

+ Sapphire Energy

All photos by Ariel Schwartz

Ziploc AltUse

Play NFL football? Need an ice pack for an injury? Want wrinkle free clothes? 

Ziploc AltUse

Toothpaste tube appear empty? Not a problem.

Empty Tubes Of Last Remaining Contents 
Wooden pencil can help remove products from tubes
Use a wood pencil to get the last remaining drops out of a tube. With the rising costs of toothpaste, creams, ointments, hair products, adhesives, icings and other products in tubes you want to get every bit out. Lay a pencil across the end and press down as you roll the tube up and over the pencil. As you use the product keep pressing the pencil down and rolling to squeeze out all product. Slide pencil out for reuse when finished.

Labor Day Cleanup

Planning Labor Day cleanup?
Who know of all the AltUse ideas for a toothbrush

AltUse Mouthwash Tips

Too much Labor Day food! AltUse natural mouth wash!


Essential oils in water make for an excellent mouthwash

The recipe for a great and natural mouthwash is:

1. 2 drops of lemon essential oil
2. 2 drops of eucalyptus
3. 2 drops of lavender oil. 
4. Mix these into a cup of warm water and swish away.

Honey AltUse Suggestions for Labor Day and Bar-B-Que

AltUse Labor Day tips for Honey. Make Bar-B-Que sauce and more.

Read More Here: Honey

Emergency Bar-B-Que for Labor day. Coffee Can AltUse (Girl Scout tested)

Coffee Can Grill
Use your old Coffee can to grill a hamburger.......You can do this by using an old metal Folger's coffee can. Simply cut some holes in the bottom of the coffee can to create a grill-like surface. At the top of the can cut out a moderate size triangle. Place the can upside down and use the triangle to place newspaper or dry pine needles in to use as a fire starter. Once the bottom of the can is hot enough you can use the surface as a makeshift grill and cook your very own burger.


Read More

Labor Day barbecue celebration planned? Onion AltUse to clean your grill.

Use an onion to clean your grill

1) Turn on grill and heat surface of the grill to a high temperature.
2) Cut a large onion in half and place the onion on a large grill fork with the flat side facing out.
3) Vigorously rub the onion up and down the grill surface to clean the metal.
4) Switch to the other half of the onion when the first half becomes worn down


Read More

Chil Wine and more AltUse Suggestions for Salt

Want to quickly chill a bottle of wine or clean a non-stick pot?


AltUse ideas for salt 

07/22/09 Chilling A Beverage Bottle In a pinch and need a bottle chilled fast? Read More View Submitted by: dkkevents   Subscribe to Submitted by: dkkevents View Category: Food & Beverage   Subscribe to Category: Food & Beverage View Product: Salt     Subscribe to Product: Salt Email to a Friend Submit an AltUse ShareThis AltUse AltUse Rating: Number Of Times Viewed: Alternative Use Assessment: Ease Of Transformation: Value / Savings 39 Excellent 0% Good 0% Did Not Work 0% Easy 0% Average 0% Difficult 0% $$$  - 0%   $$  - 0%   $ -  0%   0 -  0%

Labor Day Tip to keep your picnic basket cold

Keep water out of your picnic basket and keep it cold
Make ice cubes that do not drip. Fill empty plastic water bottles and then freeze, be sure to leave some room for water to expand as it freezes.

Use these plastic water bottle ice cubes to keep your meals on the go cold. And ice does not melt and make a mess.

Solve Wet Dog Sell AltUse

Pet lovers, ever suffer with wet dog smell?

Eliminate Wet Dog Smell with a Fabric Softener Sheet

To remove that "wet dog" smell, wipe down the mutt with a fabric softener dryer sheet (e.g. Bounce) and the animal will smell better.

San Francisco Examiner features AltUse

WDAY Green Tip #10 - Alternate uses for everyday items

Note: Each Wednesday Wendy brings Simple Tips for Green Living to The Christopher Gabriel Program. We also highlight a different favorite green site each week. You can stream the segment at approximately 1020am (CDT) every Wednesday at WDAY.com.

GREEN TIP: Visit AltUse.com to learn how you can save money and heal the earth by extending the life of everything you already own. Find alternate uses for everyday products.

Some AltUse.com Tips:

1. Line a Vegetable Drawer

Keep vegetables fresh by lining refrigerator drawer.

Read More Click Here
http://tinyurl.com/nzd4dk

Worm Compost Bin-Ultra Plant Fertilizer

Worm bins for vermicomposting may be expensive. Instead, I found a translucent three drawer plastic bin that was being discarded and modified it.

1. Burn with a soldering iron or melt small holes into the bottom of the top 2 drawers. The liquid gold will drain from these holes into the bottom drawer.

2. Use shredded office, newspaper, phone book pages, dried leaves that have been dunked in water then squeezed to remove excess. This will be the worm's bedding.

3. Line wet cardboard around the sides to darken the bin for the worms.

4. Add red composting worms, not earth worms. Use sheets of moist newspaper over the top of the paper nest to provide as much darkness as possible.

5. Feed worms your kitchen food scraps like veggie peels, fruit remnants, coffee grounds from home or the local coffee house and even more shredded various papers. Do not feed them papaya seeds, meats or dairy products.

6. Worms will multiply. Does not stink if you balance the ratio of food to worms, just bury the food under the layers. You will see other grub worms show up but they are needed to change the scraps to rich garden mulch. After a week or so, put on a pair of plastic bags over your hands to toss the mixture to aerate.

*Use the worm dripping in the last drawer, add to some rain water or tap water into old water bottles and add an old spray trigger top. It makes an excellent fertilizer when you use this to spray the plant's leaves. Plants take in nutrients by roots and leaves. May also use "worm water" for watering.

*After some time, I can't tell you since I don't know how many worms you have working for you, but the scraps turn into what looks like black soil. This is vermi (worm) compost. Its now an organic SUPER fertilizer that you may use to plant your anything from fruit/veggies to flowers.

*Worm migrate to look for the food and they might slip through the water drainage hole so keep an eye out for a few in the bottom drainage drawer and fish them out, return to top 2 drawers to go back home to work. Enjoy your new pets- their quiet and do their job 24 hrs around the clock.

AltUse Featured on EcoVillageGreen

AltUse.com Gives New Meaning To Term “Reuse”

by JOE BARRIOS on SEPTEMBER 2, 2009

One of the mantras for green minded folks is “reduce, reuse, recycle.” It speaks to the necessity of reducing the use of the Earth’s natural resources to generate waste. Recycling is easy for most people to understand and implement, and reducing what you use makes simple common sense. But when it comes to re-using, it’s a lot more challenging. It’s not always clear how some products can be re-used in other ways to minimize their environmental footprint.

Enter AltUse.com, one of the most innovative websites I’ve seen in the green space. AltUse.com’s basic philosophy is one of RADICAL re-use, the idea that just about any manufactured product on the planet can be repurposed and pressed into other service.

AltUse.com is grass roots and employs many of the features we’re becoming accustomed to in the social media space. It empowers readers by allowing them to upload their re-use ideas for any product, accompanied by photos and videos. Other readers can vote on how “good” of a re-use the idea is. They can also rank how well the idea worked when tried by others, how easy it is to get the re-use to work, and how much money-saving value the idea has. The most highly rated ideas will burble to the top when a reader searches the website for ideas on how to re-use a particular product (anything from computers to coffee grounds.)

Here are some great ideas from the site as a brief sample; some are more feasible than others!

–Using toothpaste to fill holes in walls, clean an iron, and stopping mosquito itching;
–Using vodka to painlessly remove bandages, clean tiles, and increase your hair’s shine;
–Using fabric softener sheets to repel mosquitos, eliminate wet dog smell, and dust venetian blinds.

And many more!

If you’ve ever been stumped by how to re-use any given product out there, type it into AltUse.com’s search engine and see what other people have come up with!

Site: AltUse.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AlternativeUses
Twitter: http://twitter.com/AltUse

Gardening - Using Rain Gutters as Planters

Use old raingutters for growing
Repurposed raingutters as vertical gardening containers. Great for urban gardeners, apartment dwellers, intensive gardeners and anyone with a sunny wall on their home.

Gardening AltUse ideas http://tinyurl.com/mw9ooc - Do you have one? Best gardening AltUse & 1 who adds most today both win $25

http://www.AltUse.com

AltUse and Gardening - Win Prizes!

Watch the AltUse Tweets tomorrow only (9/1/09) for a special announcement and a chance for garden lovers to win prizes!

http://www.Twitter.com/AltUse

Fabric and Sewing AltUse

Do you sew? Fabric scraps around the house? AltUse for all those fabric scraps

Toothpaste Repair

Use toothpaste? Need to repair a hole in a wall? AltUse for your home with toothpaste

Mayonnaise Wood Stain Remover and More

Need to remove a stain on wood? View this and other AltUse ideas with Mayonnaise

Wine Stain Remover AltUse

Salt absorbs spilled wine from fabrics!
Pour salt liberally on a wine stain to absorb the liquid. After a few hours, rinse the fabric in cool water and wash as normal. Read more

Bananas and AltUse

Every likes bananas, right? See many banana AltUse suggestions for plants, insect bites and more.

AltUse Seed Starter for your Garden

Use hollow egg shells to start seedlings.

1)Cut less than half of the top portion of an egg off.

2)Drain the contents into a bowl and carefully rinse out the inside of the egg.

3)Using a push pin, gently poke a small hole in the bottom of the egg shell in order to let water drain from the soil.

4)Moisten some soil and spoon it into each emptied egg shell. Now you are ready to plant the seeds in your eggshells.

5)Place filled and seeded eggshells into an egg carton as a resting place. Water the seedlings as directed on the package.

6)Once the plants become big enough to plant, you can place them directly into soil outside with eggshells still intact. Eggshells act as a great fertilizer.

Oatmeal AltUse

Craving an oatmeal cookie? Instead consider a natural and holistic facial. Oatmeal AltUse