Biodiesel Community Conference:
July 14-16, 2006
Golden, Colorado
Colorado School of Mines
The grassroots biodiesel community's summer conference this year focuses
on biodiesel co-ops, biodiesel groups, grassroots biodiesel education
efforts, and the technical details of all of the above. Well even tell
you what pump we use, and what our bylaws and volunteer motivation
efforts have looked like.
History:
In the past three years the American "small-scale biodiesel" activist
community has been organizing winter conferences (all preceding the
meetings of the National Biodiesel Board's annual winter convention).
Different groups have organized these grassroots events with the focus
being on educating biodiesel consumers and activists working with or
within the biodiesel industry, and encouraging us to act as watchdogs
over biodiesel sustainability.
Local Biodiesel: A Biodiesel Co-ops Conference
This summer conference in Colorado ignores the larger industry issues
and focuses instead on the nitty-gritty details of how the grassroots
biodiesel groups accomplish their work.
There is no single answer to "How do I start a biodiesel coop" so we
instead gather members of several successful biodiesel groups into one
room to tell the story of how THEY started and run their biodiesel
efforts, and what they'd do differently with hindsight.
The conference is primarily an opportunity for discussion, networking,
and story-sharing. We'll talk about what pump we use. We'll talk about
wrangling volunteers, brokering truckloads of commercial fuel, disposing
of glycerine, dealing with frozen fuel lines and cold reactors,
organizing educational events for your community, staying motivated as
an organization, recovering methanol, and, most importantly, we'll talk
about it WITH you, not at you.
The conference is centered around networking and discussion, rather than
dry speeches, and there will be a tremendous amount of organized
networking.
We're organizing 'discussion tables' by topic at lunch and breakfast
(imagine your favorite online biodiesel discussion forums- live), and
the official presentations leave a lot of time for discussion/question
and answer with the audience. We'll leave room for regional networking
opportunities so people from the same area can brainstorm ideas on
working together. Bring your photos and equipment to show off.
People are coming from South Africa, Colorado, all corners of the USA,
Canada, and elsewhere. There is dorm housing available so you can camp
out and talk late into the night with fellow conference attendees, and
two meals a day are included in the registration fee. We have a
rideboard to encourage ridesharing and so that you can find others from
your area who are coming.
List of speakers and topics:
-Methanol recovery for homebrewers (Maud Essen and Terry Zeman, St Louis
Biofuels Club, Missouri)
-Disposal of Sidestreams: Wash Water, Magnesol, and Glycerine (Matt
Rudolph, Piedmont Biofuels Cooperative, North Carolina)
-Cold Weather Strategies for Biodiesel Users (panel discussion)
-Biodiesel Distribution Experiences (panel discussion including Kai
Curry of Biodiesel Blue Distribution, Minnesota, and members of Biofuel
Oasis, California)
-Gas Chromatography Testing of Biodiesel (Bob Armantrout, Rocky Mountain
Biodiesel)
-Excise Tax and Legal Issues Affecting Small-scale Production of
biodiesel (panel discussions)
-Biodiesel Calculator and Batch Tracking Software demo (RickH,
Omaha PSD Club)
-Magnesol and other washing alternatives (presenter TBA)
-Putting Together a Biodiesel Educational Event (panel discussion)
-Teaching Homebrew Classes (Jennifer Radtke and Maria 'Mark' Alovert and
other presenters TBA)
-Quality Testing and Quality Control factors (Maria 'Mark' Alovert,
Biodieselcommunity.org)
-Involving Women In Your Biodiesel Group (Maria 'Mark' Alovert,
Biodieselcommunity.org)
-Oil Collection Strategies (presenter TBA)
-Feedstock and competion for WVO- Co-op strategies? (presenter TBA)
-Working with Volunteers (Matt Rudolph, Piedmont Biofuels Cooperative,
and others)
-Case Studies presentations from biodiesel educational, homebrewing, and
distribution co-ops and groups :
NW Biofuels Network (Washington),
St Louis Biofuels Club (St Louis, MO),
Berkeley Biodiesel Collective (California),
Breathable Bus Coalition (Washington),
Alameda Biodiesel Coop (California),
Boulder Biodiesel (CO),
Wilson College biodiesel group (Pennsylvania),
Yoderville Biodiesel Coop (Iowa),
Austin Biodiesel Coop (Texas)
Biofuel Oasis (California)
Utah Biodiesel Coop (Utah)
-In addition to the formal presentations, we'll have some mini-workshops
and lunchtime 'discussion tables' to assist in networking (for example,
cafeteria tables labeled by region or specific topics, so you can meet
others from your region or area of interest)
For more information, final schedule (to be released July 1), and to
register, please see
http://b100.org
Registration Info:
$60 for conference registration, includes breakfast and lunch
Saturday/Sunday. Friday night's Biodiesel 101 presentation and
networking party is free and open to the public.
Saturday networking party: $5 donation requested
Dorm rooms: $22 a night, available Friday night through Monday morning.
The dorm rooms are gender-segregated at Colorado School of Mines, so we
unfortunately can't accommodate couples.
Final Conference schedule will be posted July 1 at
http://b100.org.
Hours:
Friday, July 14: Biodiesel 101 Presentation, 6 pm
Satuday and Sunday, July 15-16: Breakfast and mini-discussions: 8-10 am,
conference presentations 10am-5:30 pm
Saturday night networking party: 7-10 (check website for updates on
exact hours)
Registration deadline is June 30! Please check
http://b100.org for
updates or possible late registration.
Rideshare board:
www.b100.org/rideboard
To contact us, please email
[email protected]
was helping me assemble the $$$ mess but he backed out for reasons beyond my knowledge so I'm tearing apart what I started back in Sept 2005 and went in another direction which in turn is safer now and in the long term.
ARD
