Greenzone Online

 Welcome back to our continuing series on greenology! If you would like to read part 1, part 2, or part 3 of this series first, please follow the links.  In the meantime, we will continue with our primer of greenology.
G is for Grease. No, I’m not talking about the movie, although cars do play an important role. Now you are hopefully intrigued and wondering how grease is green and what it has to do with cars. Well, it is particularly green when the grease happens to be the remains of yesterday’s vegetable oil which is then turned into fuel for vehicles. Now we all know that driving at high speeds uses more fuel, but what if Danny Zuko and Kenickie had fueled their hotrods with used cooking oil from the Frosty Palace diner? They would have been cool and green, all at the same time! Just use your imagination like Danny:Seriously, my own city of Denton has had a biodiesel project since 2005. Although sadly, earlier this year the city severed ties with the company producing the biodiesel and has since filed suit, I still believe there are some serious possibilities with biodiesel, especially as the technology becomes more refined and the oil supplies dwindle.

H is for Hybrid. Staying with the cars, let’s talk about hybrid vehicles. I mean what exactly is a hybrid vehicle? For the longest time, I always envisioned a Chitty Chitty Bang Bang type car that was possibly powered by a team of mice. When the car slowed down you had to open the hood and toss in more cheese. Sometimes late at night as I drifted to sleep I imagined a hybrid vehicle was one that could run on the gas my hubby produced at night after eating a bean and cheese burrito. Sadly, a hybrid vehicle is neither of these. Since I am neither an auto mechanic nor an engineer (and I don’t play these on TV), I will let the Union of Concerned Scientists explain to you how a hybrid vehicle works. (Seriously, there really is a Union of Concerned Scientists. I didn’t make that one up.) And even though I don’t understand how they work I trust these scientists and believe that hybrid vehicles are part of the solution to the problems we are facing.

To learn more about greenology be sure to check out the rest of GreenZone Online. I’d love to hear some of your ideas for the rest of the alphabet. What topics would you like to see covered?  Please post your ideas in the comments!

Some additional resources and articles:
Grease Not Gas blog posting by jameshodges at YouthNoise
Snowboarders do a road trip in a veggie-fueled bus.

Denton biodiesel plant making its fuel available to public
Dallas Business Journal

Check out some of my co-bloggers posts on various transportation issues and solutions. Just click the Transportation & Alternative Fuels link.