Green Week offers chance for collaboration

Group to demonstrate how to make biodiesel

| STATE NEWS FILE PHOTO Pictured is an earlier version of the Student Greenhouse Project model displayed in the Union in February 2003. Members of the project will build and display the latest version of the model today in the Union concourse. The model, which is being built as part of Green Week, will be on display through Wednesday.

For one MSU student and an MSU alumnus, the gloom and doom predictions of global warming offer more than bad news — they offer a challenge.

The MSU Bio Diesel Project will be producing fuel using products commonly found in the kitchen during a demonstration at 7:30 p.m. today in 101 North Kedzie Hall. Items such as vegetable oil can produce about one liter of the fuel.

The demonstration will be part of the environmental celebration of Green Week at MSU.

"We're not necessarily making it so that people do it," said Cole Smith, a leader of the MSU Bio Diesel Project and a plant biology junior. "We just want to show them how simple it is."

The project, which started last semester, seeks to increase the use of biodiesel and develop new production technology to use waste as fuel. Smith and 2006 graduate Brandon Knight make up the core of the group. There also are 15 less active members who have signed on to show support of the group.

Biodiesel is a biodegradable, nontoxic, clean-burning alternative fuel, Knight said, adding that it is produced from renewable resources.

Some of the alternative fuel's benefits include cleaner burning and lower greenhouse gas emissions, Knight said.

An example of biodiesel in action can be as close as the next bus ride, since CATA runs the alternative fuel in three of its buses in Lansing. The buses can reduce emissions by up to 90 percent, according to the General Motors Corp. Web site.

As part of today's demonstration, the group also will make a short presentation called "Freedom From Oil," a campaign to end America's oil dependence. The group became involved with the Green Week activities to spread the message about biodiesel.

"Green Week was definitely a great incentive to get the word out about the project," Knight said. "(The project) gives students hands-on experience they wouldn't get with most student environmental groups," Smith said. "They don't have to be an engineer or a scientist to get involved."

More people are becoming aware of the nation's dependence on oil and the effects of greenhouse gases with recent media attention, Knight said.

"President Bush even acknowledged the climate change and oil dependence in the State of the Union address," Knight said. "That reaches everyone."

The group is focused on getting faculty support and more materials and space for the project. Knight said the group wants a co-op at MSU devoted to research on biodiesel that would be similar to one located in Kalamazoo.

Smith said Green Week should prompt students to realize the impact they make on the environment and how easily that can be changed.

"The student community is realizing its oil dependency," he said. "Students are cutting down on their waste."