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kydeere40744
True Blue Farmgirl
1132 Posts
Jessica
Kentucky
USA
1132 Posts |
 Posted - Jul 07 2008 : 10:41:08 PM
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This is a great article that was in the Lexington Herald Leader. There are some tips at the end of the article too on living green and saving $$.
http://www.kentucky.com/181/story/454203.html
Truck runs on used cooking oil
By Anna Tong
atong@herald-leader.com
It's French fries — no, make that egg rolls. Wherever ”Big Brown Betty“ goes, the rusty 1985 Ford truck leaves the hot smell of deep-fried food in her wake.
”The other day, I was getting building materials from a man for a project,“ said Nathan Turner, the truck's owner. ”His wife came outside, and said, "Are you grilling out?'“
Big Brown Betty runs on used fryer grease, which Turner, 32, collects free from various restaurants.
He saves money, but the greater satisfaction is that using vegetable oil as fuel reduces his carbon footprint.
So it goes at the Turner household in Berea, where the focus is on sustainability and a laid-back lifestyle.
Nathan and his wife, Jessa, 29, are in the midst of a new project: building a house using feedbags filled with earth. The house will look like a futuristic tan igloo when finished.
Jessa is working on the 500-square-foot ”earthbag home,“ which she says is the first of its kind to be code-approved in Kentucky. Currently, the house has several layers of earthbag ”bricks,“ and Jessa is working on the home's electrical wiring. Once finished, the house, in Egrets Cove — a self-sustaining community near Berea — will comfortably house a local retiree.
The Turners think houses like these not only help save the environment, but will save money.
The earthbag home will take eight weeks to complete and cost just $8,000.
Just down the trail at Egrets Cove, a family is building a 960-square-foot straw-bale home that will cost $30,000.
”We're essentially building custom-made homes — you couldn't even buy a God-awful trailer with that money,“ she said, gesturing at one of Berea's many mobile homes.
Taking it home
The Turners aren't your typical Kentuckians, they say, pointing out they would probably be more at home on the West Coast with other vegetarian neo-hippies in, say, Oregon.
Jessa, who wears messy pigtail buns and Teva-like sandals, adores Oregon.
At 21, Jessa hitchhiked around the nation, and she became fascinated by the entirely self-sustaining communities she saw in Oregon. The communities grew their own food and used solar and wind energy.
”I thought, man, I really need to take this home,“ she said.
She established HomeGrown HideAways, found online at www.homegrownhideaways.org a year ago to teach others eco-friendly construction techniques.
The Turners, who have known each other since they were teenagers, originally started small, by figuring out a way to reduce carbon emissions in their own lives.
One of these steps was converting a diesel vehicle so it could run on vegetable oil at the flip of a switch.
”Doing the math, it comes out to less than a dollar per gallon, but it's a lot of work,“ said Nathan, who says this is not a job for the dainty. His clothes are covered in grease.
”I have to pick up grease and then filter and strain it. It's not for people who want to pull up to a pump and stand there with a credit card.“
Jessa and Nathan's dream is to find 100 acres near Berea and have a self-sustaining property where they can grow their own food and teach others how to do the same.
It's not an easy lifestyle to consider for Americans who are nurtured on a culture of air-conditioning at the flip of a switch and a cheeseburger in five minutes. There are only a few self-sustaining communities in Kentucky, and two are in the Berea area.
But these fringe communities serve as incubators for mainstream green concepts, said Jim Embry, director of the Sustainable Communities Network in Lexington.
”The value of doing this is tremendous,“ he said.
Here are some tips from Nathan and Jessa Turner on living green while saving money.
* Save energy and money with a rain barrel. Direct your downspout into a barrel or clean trash can and use the water for lawn and plants.
* Install ceiling fans and turn off the air conditioning at night and when you're away. Open windows and turn on fans to make use of cool evening breezes. Another option is to install a programmable thermostat, allowing you to program it once and forget it.
* Ride your bike for short commutes.
* Install compact fluorescent light bulbs. They use 25 percent less energy and last seven to 10 times longer.
* Grow your own food. It saves money and means less mowing.
* Install low-flow water fixtures. For less than $10, you can conserve at least half the water needed for showering, brushing your teeth and flushing.
* Plant a tree. Deciduous trees on the south side of your house block hot summer sun, but allow winter sun to add warmth to your home, plus they absorb carbon dioxide.
* Compost food scraps. It will reduce or eliminate the smell from your garbage, and you can use the finished product on plants.
* Turn it all the way off. Turn off lights, running water, appliances, and gadgets. Many of these items still use energy even when they're not in use.
* Track your household energy usage and see how low you can get it. The average Kentuckian uses 28 kilowatt hours of electricity a day, 30 percent above the national average. Calculate your ecological footprint at www.myfootprint.org.
~Jessica in Kentucky & Farmgirl Sisterhood #137~
Be sure to visit my blog & Crafty Clipart for some of my photographs:
http://bluegrassprincess.blogspot.com/
http://www.craftyclipart.com |
Edited by - kydeere40744 on Jul 07 2008 10:55:03 PM |
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Truck Running on Cooking Oil here in Kentucky
