Yes We Can, Can by Animal Liberation Orchestra
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/alo2006-05-04.flac16/alo2006-05-04d1t07_64kb.mp3]
So apparently today is Earth Day. On Fairfield Way today there were all these folks who set up booths about their environmentally friendly businesses or products, so I went around and talked to a bunch of them to see if they would be interested in helping out the tour.
I went over to some folks proclaiming the wonders of their Green Roofs, and asked them how that would play out on a bus. (For the record: I think I only mentioned a green roof for the bus once, but that idea really caught on, and I kept hearing about it for months. It is probably not going to happen) These folks had some really pretty and impractical green roof solutions. Their stuff is modular, so it comes in these little blocks that you put on your roof. Long story short, there are way too many reasons that this (and really any green roof solution) isn’t worth it (for the bus). I’m putting a deck or something on top.
Next I went over to a UConn professor who is doing work on mass producing biodiesel. Just to clarify for those who don’t know, biodiesel is derived from veggie oil, but through a chemical reaction, is made pure enough to run through an engine without modification. My approach is to just heat the veggie oil to have it reach the necessary viscosity to run through the engine. He isn’t very interested in that, and I’m not very interested in bringing a chemistry lab along on the bus, so odds are we won’t be able to help each other.
Last I went to the solar guy’s tent. I talked to a guy from Sunlight Solar about a potential sponsorship of the tour. He said it would have to go through the dude who owns the company, so I shot off an email. I’m not really expecting much to come from it, but it would be nice. If nothing really happens, there are hundreds of companies who do solar that would be interested in helping us out. We just need to find them.