Bio Products Opportunity

For those of us who worked with Emily, this Intern’s journal  is a tear jerker, especially as we head into a summer without a single Emily on project:

118 days

I arrived at the co-op in January of 2007 having never made biodiesel or even driven a diesel vehicle.  I’m convinced that the reason I got the internship was because of Piedmont’s policy of always having an ‘Emily’ on the project, but I wasn’t about to complain.  After spending the previous three months applying to chemical engineering PhD programs, I was excited to do anything that did not involve writing, editing, or re-writing essays about my academic research interests (photocatalytic energy generation … in case you’re interested).

Actually getting my hands dirty and making biodiesel sounded like a great way to spend my time before I returned to grad school and years of making precise measurements of very small things in a sterile laboratory.

It took me a couple weeks to familiarize myself with the day-to-day operation of the co-op and memorize the Piedmont Biofuels “elevator speech” but after that, the ball never stopped rolling.  I quickly went from asking questions about biodiesel to answering them as if I were an expert.  Every week was filled with clean tech demos (which I enjoyed more than I ever admitted), class at CCCC, working at Industrial, Sunday tours, tours for those “extra special” groups of people that we had to squeeze in at the last minute, and of course making fuel.  I could barely find time to visit the grad schools that I did get into, and as a result missed enough Sunday tours that Greg will probably hold a grudge against me forever.
All in all, I spent 118 days at Piedmont Biofuels.  During that time we got a lot of stuff done.  We added insulation to the windows of the Grease Warming Zone (GWZ).  We revamped the co-op fuel making process (yeah heat) and started making two batches a week.  We talked to a lot of people in rural North Carolina about biodiesel (and I revived my southern accent).  I spent a lot of time knee-deep in stinky mud to expand our artificial wetlands system, and even more running tests for Rachel at the Industrial  lab.
My time at Piedmont taught me how much I didn’t know.  Funny that I can have a degree in chemical engineering without ever having installed a heat exchanger, plumbed pipes together, or used a hose clamp.  Funny that I spent a year getting a master’s degree that focused on renewable energy technologies, yet my textbooks didn’t even contain the word “biodiesel.”  Funny that I have taken more chemistry classes than I can count, yet I still needed someone to explain the kinetics of a transesterification reaction to me a couple of times before it hit home.  All of my previous work experience has been for large multinational engineering companies.  There I was taught to think that it was impossible for people without engineering degrees to build a chemical plant, regardless of how intelligent and passionate they are.
During my 118 days, I had to relearn a lot of things.  Piedmont works very differently from the giant corporations I had interned with in the past.  Things move fast.  An idea born late on a Monday night can be fully implemented by Tuesday afternoon, no sweat.  The amazing people who run the place can come up with creative solutions to last minute problems that would never make it through the red tape at a larger company.
Over the course of my internship, I came to admire the controlled chaos and elegant simplicity that manage to keep abundance flowing at the co-op and industrial.  I learned a lot about biodiesel, the meaning of sustainability, and myself. It is ironic that I traveled halfway around the world to get that degree in “sustainability” when the whole time there was a sustainable community springing to life in my back yard.
Like the other Emilys I am not staying on project, but heading out into the wild yonder to try my hand at something new.  I have just moved to Washington DC, where I will spend the summer trying to convince Congress to increase the use of biodiesel in the military (wish me luck…).  After that, I am making the long trek to southern California to return to my academic roots and a lab coat at Caltech.  And after that … I’m not sure where the winds will take me, but I do know that regardless of my final destination, my 118 days at Piedmont Biofuels has been an important part of my journey.

Original post by Lyle

Some days ago I eard on a TV show about cars that a hybrid car has a larger environmental cost than many other cars!! I found it really surprising so I tryied to look for some information about this topic. Well… hybrid cars may spend less fuel but that’s just a little […]

Original post by jmgs

Perhaps its not so dark after all. If the program reported in this news item below is truly implemented, we will have a good number of iron deficiency anemia cases reduced. Comments are welcome.
AMERSFOORT, THE NETHERLANDS- May 29, 2007- The Pakistan Ministry of Health has awarded Fortitech Asia Pacific the contract to manufacture and supply […]

Original post by Murtaza

Original post by drnjbmd

Greg came to us from New York. His internship was for the winter semester of 2007. When he finished in the spring, he gave up his amateur status as fuelmaker, and joined us at Industrial. Here is his
journal :

Biodiesel Man

In the little world which I inhabit, biodiesel somehow creeps into every conversation. It’s like I have a friend with a very exciting life that we can live vicariously through. The first time I met him (it’s him to me, no offense) was in Flagstaff, Arizona where I was thinning forest and building trails in an Americorps program. I was impressed by the fuel, but somewhat unimpressed by the bus full of hippies that brought him. He and other alternative energies where on my mind in Moldova, where I stayed for 2 years trying to accomplish something useful, but the timing wasn’t right. Finally, when I returned to the US in November of 2006, I could put some energy into getting to know him.

I came across Piedmont Biofuels searching for internships and jobs at idealist and I was lucky enough to come down for my interview when Girl Mark visited Pittsboro to do a short biodiesel class. The first thing you notice about the folks who really hang out with biodiesel (not the one’s who just say they do) is that they are never quite normal. Girl Mark’s name, in every informal and most formal uses, is still Girl Mark. Matt Rudolf went to Guatemala with the money he got from selling his car and had no institutional backing whatsoever (the undertone of our first conversation was “Peace Corps is for wussies”). I’m always hearing the tail end of stories about what Lyle did “in his youth”. The other thing you notice is that they are motivated, sharp, and have a different and very valuable view of the world. The uninitiated might confuse them with some segment of hippies, but then frankly, most of the uninitiated can’t even keep up with them.

I was out of my element in every way possible. I knew little about biodiesel. I could not weld, nor plumb, nor choose the appropriate pump based on the situation. I haven’t worked in a lab since 11th grade when I did assays to measure protein levels in egg yolks. These were skills that biodiesel likes (not the egg thing exactly, but certainly the others), and I had none. I thought if I could buddy up with biodiesel maybe I could pick up a thing or two. So when Matt said I was in, I prepared to learn.

The coop is a great place to get to know biodiesel and to learn what biodiesel needs from you because nothing is ever (ever!) finished. The wetlands, the oil water separator, the bubble wash and dry, and the heat exchangers in the reactor were just a few things that we interns changed. We accomplished these tasks in the time honored tradition of trial and error, with a healthy dose of error. We soon realized that plumbing is pretty easy, pumps can be understood if you know where to look, and that most of the time you don’t need to know how to weld. Experience in making batches helps to improve your visual, tactile, and sometimes olfactory understanding of biodiesel and it can save you time. It didn’t take long before we were being productive and though clearly still novices, we knew biodiesel better than Joe Public.

And thankfully we got to tell Joe Public that at least once a week. A large part of our job was to go around to community colleges, seminars, sustainability events, and generally wherever Matt said to let people briefly cross paths with biodiesel with the hopes that they want to meet him again soon. This served as a big confidence booster for us interns. At Piedmont we were at the bottom of the biodiesel knowledge totem pole, but we could give a great and convincing speech to most anyone else. It also gave us a chance to understand the reality of people’s perceptions of biodiesel, from the “how much does it cost to convert my car to run biodiesel” person to the ever-present “what about NOx” guy. And even though there are a lot of questions, it usually doesn’t take much convincing for people to see that biodiesel has an important role to play in our energy present and future.

My internship at Piedmont Biofuels was a perfect stepping stone into the industry, just as internships should be. I feel lucky that they offered me to stay on to make fuel at the industrial facility, so even though the housing is not great, the pay is worse, and the grease stains are permanent, the experience was truly one-of-a-kind.

In staying on project, not only do I get to continue to hang out with biodiesel on a daily basis, but I also see the rest of the not-quite-normal Piedmont staff. It’s not every day that you meet the type of people who work at Piedmont, and it’s almost never that you see so many in the same place. It takes a pretty special someone to attract so many good folks - that’s our friend biodiesel.

Original post by Lyle

The Abundance Foundation is holding a fund raiser at the plant.  They intend to serve local food to the first seventy five folks who sign up.

Apparently the ex-chef from The Lantern is stepping in.  And Todd from ECO Organics is stepping in.  He was a chef in his past life.  And I believe my children have been deputized as wait staff.  They are well trained from their many years of waiting on me hand and foot.

This dinner is set for Sunday, June 10th, and it is twenty five bucks a head-ten for children.  Proceeds go to the Pittsboro Farmer’s Market.

Our local fuel project is necessarily on the edge of the local food scene.  Tes did a marvelous job of covering Carlo Petrini’s Triangle visit in her blog.  I stayed home with children that night and worked with Zafer on a Ten Year’s After song.  He’s moved to the electric guitar, and his walls of sound fill the farmhouse these days.

Apparently the local Tilapia farm has sold out to golf course developers, and they are moving their aquaculture operation to a farm across the road.  That’s making for a bunch of orphaned fish, which are headed to Eat Local Night.

The idea behind the project is to raise a bunch of cash for the Farmer’s Market.  The Farmer’s Market is not “in trouble,” in fact it is having its best year ever.  But it could use some cash for banners or signs or whatever it takes to get the word out.

What better way to support the local market than to come to the biodiesel plant for a simple sit-down dinner for seventy-five?  Buy your tickets early…

Original post by Lyle

While research in our institutions continues to focus on problems of INTERNATIONAL importance, young and old doctors alike sometimes forget about their very own country Pakistan and it’s LOCAL problems. Gastroenteritis remains an important problem for our country and it is painfully obvious that the answer lies not in curative medicine but simple public health […]

Original post by Murtaza

Surprised to read this news item on PakTribune claiming WHO has decided to suspend the brand of hepatitis B vaccine currently in use in Pakistan following deaths due to its administration in a few countries. Pakistan’s Ministry of Health has ignored the instructions and continues its use.
ISLAMABAD: World Health Organization (WHO) has suspended the use […]

Original post by Murtaza

In what looks more like a high level small talk, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz met his Health Minister to talk about increase in health spending, controlling malaria, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis and improving MCH in the country. Pakistan Times reports:
By Sheeraz Aslam
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has said that the government is committed to achieve the millennium […]

Original post by Murtaza

Another one of DAWN’s daring reports on the state of the leprosy hospital run by the city government in Karachi.
By Meera Jamal
KARACHI: The agony of Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis of being rejected by his loved ones for no fault of his own, but due to a deformity that suddenly emerged out […]

Original post by Murtaza

Dawn reported today how “Hundreds (were) deprived of kidneys in Punjab”
By Zulqernain Tahir
LAHORE, May 26: The number of kidney removal victims (both willing and unwilling) in Punjab can be in hundreds, police investigators told Dawn on Saturday. They said they were interrogating the owner of Masood Hospital, Dr Zaki, and his son Dr Masood, […]

Original post by Murtaza

Original post by drnjbmd

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Asian strain 1 and Beijing isolates predominate in Pakistan.“The estimated incidence of tuberculosis in Pakistan is 181 per 100,000, however, there is limited information on Mycobacterium tuberculosis genotypes circulating in the country.”“We studied 314 M. tuberculosis clinical isolates; of these, 197 (63%) isolates grouped into 22 different clusters, while 119 (37%) had unique […]

Original post by Murtaza

A contaminated water source and person-to-person spread were the main transmission routes for two cholera outbreaks in Karachi, Pakistan.
According to a recent report published in the journal Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, “In July 2002 and June 2003, cholera outbreaks were detected by a diarrhea surveillance system in a village […]

Original post by Murtaza

A study at Aga Khan University in Karachi looked at the effectiveness of fluroquinilones againts Simian virus-40 that encodes helicases to facilitate DNA replication. Following is a report on their findings:
Data detailed in “Inhibition of Simian virus 40 large T antigen helicase activity by fluoroquinolones” have been presented. “Fluoroquinolones represent a potent group of antibiotics […]

Original post by Murtaza