The 5th annual Alaska Renewable Energy Fair will be held Saturday August 1st from 11am-9pm at the Memorial Block on the Delaney Park Strip, downtown Anchorage.

This FREE Fair features food and craft vendors, business and non-profit exhibitors, live music, and workshops on renewable energy.  Keynote speaker at 5pm, Melissa Mitchell sings in the afternoon and the Whipsaws will rock the evening.

We’ll have a number of veg-converted vehicles to show off and will be offering a backyard biodiesel basics demonstration, time TBA.

Check out http://alaskarenewableenergy.org/events/renewable-energy-fair/ for more details.

Veg On!

Unfortunately we have to cancel our 4-days of biodiesel courses in Palmer this weekend.  Participants should contact Girl Mark directly for refunds.

We WILL be offering a 1-day biodiesel basics class this Thursday June 11th in Peters Creek, including titration, test batches and full batch processing.

$50 donation, no one turned away for lack of funds.

Call 688-5288 to register or for more information.

Veg On!

Girl Mark is scheduled to teach a two-day biodiesel crash course, followed by a two-day biodiesel advance-topics course June 11-14th at Alaska Pacific University’s Spring Creek Farm in Palmer.

Although the classes are hosted by Arctic Vegwerks, we are promoting these opportunities as a community service.  All registrations and fees are collected directly by Maria “girl Mark” Alovert.

For more information or to register, please see http://www.girlmark.com/#alaska.

Thu-Fri Jun 11-12, 2009 Biodiesel Production Crash Course in Palmer.
Looking to make free fuel? Everything from collecting oil to building your own full-sized reactor will be covered in this comprehensive 2-day biodiesel crash course. More info at www.alaskabiodiesel.org or call Arctic Vegwerks at 688-5288.

Sat-Sun Jun 13-14, 2009 Advanced Topics Biodiesel Hands-On Workshop in Palmer.
Learn the latest homebrew techniques to lower costs, improve safety and increase yields in your biodiesel process. We will cover Alaska-specific production issues including ethanol-based biodiesel, high-FFA oils, methanol recovery, glycerine processing, and acid-catalyzed esterification procedures. This workshop requires prior experience or attendance at the Biodiesel Production Crash Course (or similar 2-day class). More info at www.alaskabiodiesel.org or call Arctic Vegwerks at 688-5288.

Biodiesel fuel can be made in your backyard or garage for under $2/a gallon with common ingredients, using very inexpensive equipment. Relatively little chemistry knowledge is needed to produce quality fuel that will run in any diesel engine, and thousands of people around the country have discovered homebrewing fuel to be an addictive hobby. Come learn what it takes to produce your own clean-burning biodiesel fuel, and to build the equipment to do so. These classes are hands-on and fast-paced – you’ll be making test batches of fuel, titrating and testing oil, and assessing quality of the finished product throughout the two day class.

Maria “girl Mark” Alovert will be teaching these courses. She is the inventor of the water-heater based appleseed processor, the author of the Biodiesel Homebrew Guide, and the nation’s premier biodiesel educator.

Thanks to KTNA for a nice little snippet on the Talkeetna Earth Day Fair.

Yep, biodiesel from Kodiak Salmon Oil (courtesy of Alaska Mill and Feed.)

However I’m from Peters Creek, not Petersville.

Veg On!

In celebration of Earth Day the kind folks at Greasy Rider have put their film up on Hulu!

We showed this SVO Road-Trip documentary at the Anchorage Museum of Art last year.  Read our review here.

Veg On!

The 2009 Earth Day celebration for the Upper Susitna Valley will be held on Saturday, April 18th, at the Sheldon Community Arts Hanger in downtown Talkeetna from 11:00am – 3:00pm.

The festivities will include presentations, food, coffee, kid crafts, entertainment and informational
booths.

We’ll be there with biodiesel demonstrations, straight veg information and class flyers. Anyone want to come out and help table?

Directions:

Take the George Parks to Talkeetna Spur Road (mile 98). Turn onto Talkeetna Spur and take it all the way into town to the stop sign. Go through the stop sign (stay on Main Street) and take your first left (just after Nagley’s). It’s directly ahead on the left in a renovated airplane hanger

Veg On!

“It’s really dorky and fun,” says Utne Reader librarian Danielle Maestretti about the Alaska biodiesel articles in this issue of biodieselSMARTER.  Dorky and fun?  Sure, I’ll go with that.  Check it out at the Utne Reader Media Blog!

Veg On!

P.S. We’re at the end of the segment.

Aurora Magazine has put out a nice little piece on Alaska biofuels.

The Fairbanks Biodiesel “co-op” is featured, as well as little on Arctic Biofuels (also in Fairbanks).

Near the end is a mention about canola as an oilseed crop in Delta.  There’s also stuff on grasses, barley and wood.  A short but well written overview for the layperson – check it out.

Veg On!

BiodieselSMARTER, my favorite biodiesel magazine, has a series of Alaska-centric features for their Spring ‘09 issue.

Although it’s called biodieselSMARTER, there’s a fair bit of info for you SVO fans out there (and even some pieces on those people that blend unheated vegoil).

About half of the articles have been posted on their website, so check it out and subscribe – at $15 a year “it’s like a printed version of the infopop forum, but without all the fluff.”

(and yeah, that’s my truck.)

Veg On!