Good Evening SuperForest!
SuperForester Jackson here. I just got back to my apartment after the premier of Fuel, Josh Tickell’s new film about the mess we’re in and how to clean it up.
Beginning with a bio of Josh, his Australian birth and upbringing, it then follows him as he is transplanted into Louisiana, where many of his relatives are being curiously sickened, clearly by the oil refineries surrounding them…
The biggest shock to the young Josh and his brother is the contrast between Australia, where you can swim in any water hole and eat any fish you catch, to the bayous of Louisiana, where the waterways are clogged with waste and not fit for humans.
He describes how the shock of the alien culture and the hostile environment drove him inward, leading young Josh on a path of discovering the natural world through science. He began his career as an enviro-scientist by testing the waterways around his home county, finding dangerous levels of multiple toxins. Such was the severity of his findings that an official from the EPA threatened to disqualify his science project, on the grounds that Josh’s numbers were so different from the “official” levels released by the oil company funded EPA.
While he was living abroad, Josh discovered the work of Rudolph Diesel, whose engine was originally built to run on peanut oil. Seeing that farmers in Germany were already using biodiesel to run their tractors, Josh had an epiphany: He’d return to the United States and get evangelical about the wonders of biodiesel!
And that’s just what he did. Josh and some creative friends sketched out a rudimentary biodiesel station that could convert waste veggie oil from fast food joints into fuel, and be towed behind Josh’s new diesel Winnebago.
Josh then spent the next several years touring around the country, giving lectures, showing off his technology, answering questions, getting interviewed, all while slowly snowballing biodiesel awareness.
As Fuel puts it very bluntly, oil is over. Fossil fuels are finished.
And since what we need is not a magic bullet, but magic buckshot, the answers to our problems are various and delightful.
But there is one word that you should know, for this simple word will be a major part of the transition away from fossil fuels. That word is algae.
Check this:
Ironically, it’s algae that we have to blame for getting us into this mess, as it was ancient algae and phytoplankton that became oil in the first place. But algae-fuel technologies will be able to step in and provide us with the crutch that we need to hobble through this mess, but only if enough people know about it and believe.
The amazing thing about algae is how many problems it solves at once! Its main food sources are sunlight and carbon dioxide. You can produce it on land that can’t be farmed, with water that can’t be drunk. Because it grows so fast you can make it as fast as you need it, in as big a system as you can imagine.
The oil extracted from algae can be used to make diesel, regular gasoline, plastics, fertilizers, and because this algae-oil can be made from waste it is a negative carbon producer.
That means, for every tank of algae-diesel pumped, you’d be removing multiple tanks of fossil fuel damage from the lovely equation we call life here on Earth.
Algae, folks. The future is in algae.
But remember, no magic bullets! Magic buckshot is the new way.
So in addition to algae tech, we’re gonna need solar, wind, geothermal, bicycles, and good old smart engineering to use less energy.
Collaboration and idea-sharing are our way out of this.
Josh describes how the anger from the injustices around him were his primary source of inner fuel for many years… That is until he decided to stop fighting and start forming partnerships.
When Josh and I spoke today he said two things that encouraged me greatly: The first was that we could now easily run our entire planet solely on the waste we’ve produced. And the second thing he said, and bear in mind that this is a man who has spent better than a decade working on this issue, was that the answers to the energy crises, the bright lights to shine our way out of this quagmire, are all there.
We don’t need anything new to fix the problem. We have all the answers.
Now is simply a matter of implementing them…
No, says Josh, (I’m paraphrasing) the really interesting question is not how we solve the energy crises. We know the answers to that.
The really interesting question is what we do now that we can so easily play god.
Fuel opens in NYC March 13th, and, if 2,000 people see it, it will go wide.
So New York, let’s go see a movie!
This one’s a doozy.
I’d like to thank Josh Tickell for soldiering on so bravely for so many years on behalf of us all, for his undying dedication to being a decent human being and creating effective communication, and for taking the time to chat with me today.
Your movie is a great one, Josh. I hope the world pays notice.
Thank you very much to All
-SuperForester Jackson
p.s. I was extended the invitation to the screening by SuperForester Julia and I’d like to give her my hearty thanks.
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