The conference and forum are complete. And they were both quite successful. We had farmers, mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, microfinance organizations, and community leaders among our 35 conference attendees. We had the conference at Sustainable Harvest’s demonstration farm underneath a large tent.

The conference started with an explanation of why our group Whitman Direct Action is in Central America in the first place. I ended up being the one to give that opening speech. During my short speech I was describing the impacts of petroleum dependence both upon people and the environment, and I could see that the attendees were all in agreement. From that starting point I had a good feeling about the coming hours and days.

Next Annelle explained the general chemistry of biodiesel and had our conference attendees make 1 liter batches. Dan, Brook, Curt and Hugo measured out 1 liter of oil and then poured the methoxide into soda bottles for the attendees. The attendees then shook their bottles for 15 seconds 4 times throughout the hour, thus making their own biodiesel. It was a great opener to the conference.

During the opening presentations Curt gave a very informative presentation on the effects of biodiesel on your car. He covered any necessary precautions one must take, and how to make the switch from diesel to biodiesel.

After people had made their biodiesel and seen the magic happen, Ethan and Annelle went over the process of titrations with people. Titrations are what we do to make sure we add the right amount of catalyst to our reaction. Titrating involves some decently complicated measuring so this presentation took about an hour long. Once they completed their presentation, we titrated a sample of oil that we had preheated in our processor. We used that titration number to make our mix of methoxide so that conference attendees could see a large batch be made from start to finish. Brook explained the adding of methanol and caustic soda, and how to do it safely.

Once the methoxide started mixing, we have about half an hour to wait until the chemicals dissolve, so I had the chance to give an in-depth description of our processor, coving it from top to bottom.

By the end of the presentation, the chemicals were dissolved and ready to be added to the oil. Brook gave an overarching review of the processor as he added the methoxide with Dan’s help.

Throughout the day, Hugo gave a series of excellent presentations covering the environmental benefits of biodiesel, alternative heating possibilities and how to dewater oil.

At the end of the day, Curt and I began our presentation of washing techniques. We covered bubble washing, static washing and mist washing. We used 2L bottles to demonstrate these washes because they are clear and allow the audience to clearly see what is happening. Unfortunately, we had to cut our presentation short by half an hour because it started to thunder and people were distracted.

I want to continued writing to tell you about day two and the presentations we gave, and everything that happened, but I don’t have my notes in front of me. I am worried I may have even botched up the order of the first day (especially Hugo’s speeches). So I’ll write more soon. But I will say that it truly was an excellent conference, and I feel we did a very good job. We got great reviews from attendees, and some of them even made personal donations beyond the conference fees (we let them know our financial situation). I am really very happy with how things turned out.

I’ll write more soon, we are in the midst of planning for our trip to Nicaragua for our second biodiesel conference and work with the Jubilee House.

Peace,
Joseph

Brook and Ethan got into town a couple of days ago. The bus is currently being repaired. Thankfully, Ethan and Brook were able to bring our processor from the states. They did this by having our 55 gallon drums strapped to the tops of various buses as they made their journey from Antigua, Guatemala to here (Xela). It must have been quite the journey.

Hugo, Annelle, Ethan and myself are headed to Ana Cafe 2 hours outside of Xela to work on acid estrification before our conference. We need to get that tech down before we got to Honduras. Meanwhile, an engineer from 3M named Dan has joined our forces. He seems like a genuinely sweet and intelligent man. Curt, Brook and Dan will be finalizing our methanol evaporization and recovery system over these next days. Dan has over seven years of exerpeince as an engineer and I am excited to see what he contributes to our group.

The solar oven should be finished today, and now that brook is here, we can actually get the heat exchanger rolling.

As always, we are encountering challenges, but as always we are overcoming them.

Ben and Jo will leave today as well to go to SHI’s demo farm to make sure the conference preparation is going smoothly.

Our group is dividing to take on the hundreds of tasks we must complete to make all this work worth something in the end.

Strength and Hope,
Joseph

Quetzaltenango is one of those towns where just about anything, and anyone, can be found. Serendipity is the unspoken law. Pure chance brought me here, sore and with a headache from the rapid altitude increase that I’d traveled since the Mexican border, and pure chance brought me into Whitman Direct Action.

The only destination that I had last Wednesday was Xela Teco, a local ecological technology organization where I planned to offer whatever skills I could. As it turned out, they were in need of some improvements in their solar hot water systems, and I just happened to work as a solar thermal system installer before going to college. I would soon find that my knowledge and past experience would bring me many more opportunities than just those found in a workshop.

On Thursday evening I briefly met Joe and Curt, the “biodiesel bros,” as I would soon know them, and a brief introduction was all we needed to discover a mutual interest in each other’s ideals. They needed someone to help design and build their solar biodiesel heating system, and I just plain wanted to get involved in as many interesting alternative energy projects as possible. Friday allowed us to get properly acquainted and to begin the long process of designing solar panels and ovens using only the cheapest and most locally available resources. MacGiver had an easier time.

These last few days I have spent just getting to know their project and really coming to appreciate the devotion and perseverance of those involved. It is obvious that they are up against some formidable challenges, but so far I’ve only seen them face each day with a good sense of relaxed humor and committed personal discipline. I would not say that their goals are impossible to reach, in fact far from it, but there is a lot of ground to cover before the dream can become reality. When you really think about it, though, dreaming about sustainable fuel and energy systems is much more grounding and realistic than believing that the current situation can and will last.

At the moment I am a bit torn in my personal direction. I only intended on staying in Xela (as Quetzaltenango is commonly known) for a week or so before continuing on my journey, but now I am starting to rethink my priorities. It is not very often that I find a group of intelligent, conscious youth out to really start some positive initiatives in a developing country. Not to mention the fact that my background fits into their mission like a missing puzzle piece. Who knows what will happen next, but for now I am truly excited to work with such amazing people, to enjoy the communal enthusiasm and cooperative spirit, and to offer my services to something that I actually believe to be both beneficial and feasibly useful. I’m not making any promises, but you can probably expect to hear from me again.

Hasta la proxima,
Tanner Welsh

Slowly but surely things are coming together. Don Prudencio FINALLY finished the welding on our processor. However, we are a bit concerned because he only tack welded the conical bottom onto the bottom of our drum. He then used silicone glue to seal it. We are pretty sure that with time, the chemicals we are using will eat through that glue. This means more time that we have to spend waiting for welding to be completed before we can put the rest of our processor together. But the good news is that except for that, the welding on our processor is complete.

Also in breaking news: Amit and Tanner (after some long discussions with Curt and I) finally came to a great plan for the solar box that they are planning on building to heat the oil for our biodiesel process. They are planning on building the box tomorrow, while Don Prudencio welds them a heat exchanger.

I can’t wait to finally get my hands on some palm oil. We’ve been here a week and a half, and I still haven’t made any biodiesel. It is a bit strange not making biodiesel for such a long time. I am very anxious to start making biodiesel here because most of the oil that people have access to currently is palm oil, and our team needs to have experience with this specific oil before we can teach people about it. Once the processor is complete we will go to Ana Cafe. We will do our experimentation on the farm, because it is at a lower elevation and is warmer (which is better than making biodiesel up in the cold mountains of Xela proper). The owner of Ana Cafe has agreed to give us 200 gallons of palm oil to experiment with.

The other night Curt and I had a really good conversation about how we both are unfortunately harboring quite a bit of resentment within us. Many many people have let us down throughout the course of this project. We have encountered countless obstacles, and bared witness to the more tragic side of human nature (including our own) quite often. But still, we have remained strong because this is something that we care about and because it is something we both set out to do. Yet still, that anger sits within us. Don’t get me wrong, there have been many beautiful moments in this project, but in the shadow of the many other huge let downs it is hard not to become a bit jaded.

But that conversation somehow freed me. It re-centered my understanding of why I am doing this project. If anything the best thing I can do for me is to not let other people’s failures contribute to my own. And the best thing I can do for them is to show them what it means to actually dedicate one’s self to something. Perhaps they will refuse to see that lesson, most people hate to admit their failures (that is something I have had to come to terms with in myself many times over throughout this project).

Regardless, I am feeling like less of a jaded activist, and more like a person surrounded by good people trying to do good things. But as I write these words, my pulse quickens a bit at the danger of those words. Too often in this world that general sentiment leads to a sort of group feeling that says “look, we are doing good things with our lives” which can often cause people to not work as hard because they become stagnated by that feeling of fulfillment. The feeling of approval. We must continually push ourselves to the limit if we want this project to be a success. Getting stuck at the border for a week, and slow welding has put us significantly behind schedule. As such, now is more important than ever.

New update: Well I thought that the welding was done, but I have now begun to check the quality of the work and thus far I have found five different leaks in the welding job. It was quite a disheartening discovery because the welding took over a week longer than it was supposed to, and now we are you appoxy to patch our processor up. The appoxy is not a long term solution, but it is resistent to the chemicals we are using, so the processor will be good for a couple of months (assuming I bought enough appoxy to fix all the holes I am continually finding).

The bus: brook and Ethan are coming tonight. For this I am soooo thankful. Those poor guys have been through so much. First the border was hell! (Since our bus driver ditched us our paperwork wasn’t in order and that set us a week behind). Then, the bus broke an hour outside of the border of Mexico and Guatemala. The good news is that the original owner, Gwen, paid for the bus to be towed to Guatemala because Mexico doesn’t sell the parts that we need. Gwen is also paying for all of the needed repairs, which is incredibly generous in him.

Currently I am waiting for the appoxy to dry and I will test our processor to see if it is leak free.

Hugo had a great insight: this project is like one incredibly hard video game, and every time you think you got the level beat, some random monster jumps out and puts you back siginificantly. The key is to just keep working at it, learn from your mistakes, and stay strong.

The conference is fast-approaching and there are so many details that still need to be worked out. I’m cautiously optimistic that everything will be okay. However, caution and optimism basically cancel each other out, so I’m not sure how I actually feel.

I am reminded of when I was a state officer for DECA in Oregon, an international marketing club for high school students. (Yes, I’m a dork.) There is a large state conference every year for Oregon DECA in Portland. Since I was a state officer, I was at the event site before the conference and saw everything come together. A lot of people with a lot of experience are needed to make that conference run smoothly. What I now realize is that I had no idea how complex the conference planning process is.

Yesterday was officially the last day that we were accepting applications to our Honduras conference from July 14-18. I am excited to see the interest and dedication of diverse actors who all want to learn about and promote biodiesel. However, many people send back their applications without filling out important information or writing information ambiguously. So, I have to keep track of what info is missing from whom and make sure that we get everything we need for the conference to run well. Communicating through email is an imperfect, slow process, so this has been difficult.

We have a good number of applicants to the conference, and we will probably be adding more people as we work out how we will get our friends in Guatemala to the conference. For example, Erick Gonzalez and Edelman Monzon are two engineering professors at the Universidad de San Carlos in Xela, Guatemala. They are building a 1000 gallon biodiesel processor and would be a great asset for the conference. However, their university has to authorize their absence. I hope they can come, as they would learn a lot from other attendees and help us with our own production process.

I will be leaving Monday morning, bright and early, for the conference site in Sula, Honduras. I am apprehensive. I have been communicating well with Yovany of Cosecha Sostenible; however, there are many issues that need to be resolved before the conference. I feel good about the work that I’m doing, but I need to see more concrete results. The conference planning process is drawn out and there are few instances where I can say, “Yes! We’re making progress.”

There is progress, but it’s slow and steady. So, I can’t gauge our success. I look forward to meeting face-to-face with the many people who I have been speaking with for the last month and a half. I think I will get that feeling that we have really done something important when people from Costa Rica to Nicaragua to Holand learn about biodiesel and share that knowledge with their organizations and communities.

Aside from my personal work, our group is really developing and moving forward. Brook and Ethan came yesterday with our original processor. This is a huge relief as Brook and Ethan have important biodiesel and chemistry knowledge. Also, our original processor is solid which is crucial considering we have had leaks on the processor built in Xela. Three members of our group will be going to Anacafe Monday to work on processing palm oil, a key process that we have not tested yet. Others will continue working on solar, quality testing, and different heating elements for our process.