Diary of a Mad Scientist

I’ve got a date for the one-day Reactor Mechanics and System Tricks class:

Session 1: July 28
Session 2: July 29th (class is only one day long but repeats for a second session)
Oakland, CA
$70

This class is geared to people who already know how to make biodiesel, either in a lab-scale or one-liter setting or who already homebrew but would like to compare notes with me on how I manage my system. You may take this class after attending a regular homebrewing class taught by someone else as well as if you have learned how to make biodiesel on your own. We dont go into a lot of detail on titration and chemistry here so that’s the info you should have ‘down’ already on your own prior to taking this “system tricks” class.

This class will be fairly small as the space only holds about 10 people.

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Syllabus will look something like this:

Start a batch of fuel in a large Appleseed homebrew processor.
Discuss safe heating, tank fires, use of hydronic heating methods, and heat exchangers. Demonstrate heat exchanger-based Appleseed.
Discuss some electrical safety interconnects proposed for heating element control in ‘regular’ electric heaters.
Discuss tricks for measuring lye safely
Discuss tricks for measuring methanol safely
Discuss pumps for pumping methanol safely
Demonstrate air-powered pumps and discuss air compressor requirements and electrical consumption if using air pumps for reactor mixing.
Discuss materials compatibility with various fuel processes and chemicals used, and discuss where inappropriate plastics can still be used with fewer consequences.
Discuss sight tubes and sight glass sources, ways of using them, ways of installing them, what to look for in industrial parts catalogs
Demonstrate use of powered methanol/lye mixers that are not just passive carboy method. Discuss pros and cons of both types of systems.
Discuss methanol vapor release to atmosphere.
Discuss fire safety issues.

drain a batch of glycerine in another Appleseed (my processor trailer) and discuss how to avoid methanol vapor exposure during this process
discuss/demonstrate how to separate glycerine from biodiesel to minimize emulsions. Most beginner mistakes having to do with emulsion are actually a separation issue where the person inadvertently contaminates their wash tank with extra soap because they haven’t separated the glycerine from the biodiesel completely. There are some tests to ensure this is actually done.
Discuss standpipe separating tanks, and demonstrate several ways of designing them.
Discuss ways to minimize contamination with unwanted material.
Discuss various kinds of quick-connects and other ways to deal with the messes caused by hoses. Most spills and other hazards are probably due to homebrewers relying on hose rather than pipe.
Demonstrate the use of hard plumbing and ways of managing multiple valves
Demonstrate different methods of labeling the process and the steps, and demonstrate one system using a ‘protocol checklist’ to minimize confusion when operating multiple valves.

Transfer finished fuel from processor trailer to wash tanks and discuss washing equipment
Demonstrate several types of washing nozzles and important considerations
Discuss closed versus open wash tanks
Discuss venting and air displacement
Demonstrate use of non-siphoning overflow mistwash tank plumbing
Demonstrate use of sump pump to move water to a drain
Demonstrate soap test titration
Discuss emulsions (I will make one for us to play with)
Break emulsion with various ways
Discuss wash tank heating methods
Discuss water disposal and ways of separating oils and water and what happens when it is done with various methods
Discuss/demonstrate water neutralizing

Drain wash water from first wash and discuss “how you know when you’re finished with washing”
Go into more detail on emulsions and water retention
Demonstrate separation of water and biodiesel using various kinds of tanks
Discuss “white stuff” that isn’t emulsion
Discuss materials compatibility and water hardness issues with regards to washing
Discuss three different drying methods for getting water out of washed biodiesel
Discuss tests for dryness of finished biodiesel

Test some finished biodiesel for quality in various ways

When the batch that we’re making is finished processing, we can perform an 80%/20% two-stage base-base process and demonstrate various equipment methods required to make it easier
We will follow it with a 5% water prewash for minimizing soap in wash. There are many ways of handling this complex process (80/20 followed by 5%) and we’ll demonstrate and discuss several possible solutions to the unwanted complexity

We will burn some glycerine in a homemade glycerine burner and demonstrate ways of moving the heat safely to heat a batch of oil for another batch of biodiesel.

I’ll briefly discuss filtration though this isn’t terribly complex
We’ll discuss different hosing material and tricks for handling/wrangling lots of hose

We’ll demonstrate a ‘cubee handling’ system for minimizing the hassle involved in processing oil that comes in 5 gallon cubes
We’ll demonstrate straining of oil
We’ll discuss, possibly only theoretically as it cant be shown in a one-day class, the ‘heat and let settle’ method of dewatering wet oil
We’ll discuss fire safety if you choose to dewater oil using boiling temperatures.

Registration info and other classes info is at www.girlmark.com/tour

Mark

Vingnettes from my jackass life: Tonight while finishing up Tom’s move-out I found a sandwich bag of Magnesol hiding in Tom’s basement. I’ve never done anything to do with biodiesel at Tom’s house.

But I seem to spend my life chasing down the loose samples and class supplies that try to sprawl out of control and take over my living spaces.

They leap across time and space and wind up in buildings and places I didnt think I took them to.

Class generates a lot of crap in small useless quantities, and I struggle to keep it under control.

It’s like a bad B movie- “Attack of the Used 3/27 Vials” or perhaps “1220 ml of Engineered Glop- It Came From Literbatchland". I’d finally consolidated my liquids samples down to one small tub of interesting stuff, but things like unlabeled bags of Magnesol still occasionally teleport themselves into my sock drawer or whatever.

I’ve yet to get messed with at airport security or stopped by police while driving class supplies around, but I’m sure the day is coming, and there’ll be some explaining to do as the supplies seem to make themselves a bit too cozy and ‘at home’ in my personal possessions. And they probably look quite ‘terroristic’ to the wrong cop.

Long gone is the day of the supplies-only suitcase and the clothes-only suitcase. Showing up at the airport, there might be a bunch of digital scales in my carryon luggage or my clean clothing may be doing double duty as a cushioning wrapper for methoxide glassware in the class supplies suitcase.

Did I mention I have a class this weekend? I’d scheduled that prior to Tom’s household all deciding to move out the same weekend. So all this building of offices, moving and detangling of possessions, unraveling the mysteries of various bills and stuffing things into storage units is really poor timing. Somehow despite July 4th I still have a nearly-full class when I assumed that I’d be teaching to 6 people because of the holiday.

On top of all that I had an unexpected dental procedure done this week that put me into a run-in with mercury toxicity symptoms- I’d had some mercury amalgam fillings removed while they were dealing with other emergency stuff and seem to have inhaled a bit of it (yes, my dentist knows how to handle the removal safely, but there are always risks with it).

So I spent about 36 hours in la-la land afterwards- cognitive difficulties, forgetting the names of things and people like I’m some Alzheimers’ patient, not remembering what I had to do from moment to moment, sleeping 11 hours again for no good reason, in Lyme pain, and otherwise experiencing my mix of nasties all over again.

At the end of Day 2 I snapped out of it and managed to sheetrock the office, tape and plaster the stuff, and do this till about 4 am in preparation for the move.

I’ve barely slept for days. Today’s activities: pack, clean, disassemble house. Spend all night catching up on email as I hadn’t checked in for days now and things were going wrong.

We have an emergency as the packing proceeds, when we realize that we really don’t have storage space for the futon couch, and there’s no where to put it. I spend time on Craigslist listing all our remaining big furniture (that we have no reason to keep storing at this point) hoping that SOMETHING sells tomorrow so we can fit it all.

Write last night’s blog for some stupid reason instead of sleeping. clean up the yard and dismantle compost, to restore the grounds to suburban-style sterility for the move-out. Timeline, 6 am.

Mow a bunch of lawn as soon as it’s late enough to not force all remaining sleepers in the neighborhood to join my crazy schedule, timeline, 8 am.

Move my remaining crap- dammit, it’s ALL biodiesel stuff, how did that wind up here at Tom’s???. timeline, 10 am.

By then I hadn’t really slept from the packing the night before and was simultaneously delerious and starving and stinky. Grab a 5-minute nap- the stress I’m feeling meant that the 5 minutes of sleep resulted in a full (but fleeting) brain reset. 5-minute shower- I’m running out of time to get to a doctor appointment but I stink and am covered with lawn juice and crushed slug parts, most likely.

Wobble my still-dizzy and delerious self over to a diner for breakfast, with 15 minutes to spare. Breakfast takes 12 minutes to be prepared and I wolf it down in 2 1/2 minutes before running back, getting in the van, and driving to the doctor.

This doctor’s an acupuncturist, so I get to lay in a darkened room after the needles are in, and fidget uncomfortably thinking about my to-do list (i’m not one of those people who find acupuncture relaxing).

Run to grocery store and post office, mail books, feel delerious enough to have trouble counting how many I"m putting into the packages, I can’t count past 10 anymore.

Go home, sleep 2 hours, Tom’s in the same condition as me but has more crap to move and pack and de-install. We’re deleriously napping for the last time in this house.

My Craigslist futon couch-selling ad works, the guy comes over and Tom’s relaying me his questions through the closed door because I’m in no condition to be coherent to someone’s face.

I’m worse than half asleep and I"m trying to go into salesman mode and sell the unseen buyer on the futon. It works and the thing goes away. Phew, crisis averted. It’s 4:30 by now, where’d the day go? We pack further .

We go out to eat sushi to deal with the stress. It’s a semi-expensive dinner, well worth the effect is has as a second ‘brain reset’for the day, and Tom jokes that we’re basically eating the futon, as dinner isn’t much less than what we sold the cheapo futon for. That was an emotional brain reset, but the bodies are still wanting to fall over.

The solution is coffee- mine’s a 4-shot espresso drink. This is the last walk ‘home’ from this particular coffee place which I"ll have no real reason to go to in the future. It’s the last sunset walk in the neighborhood, where we’ve probably walked a hundred times for ’serious talks’ and every other kind of ‘walk’ reason and just for the joy of it.

I continue packing and moving and cleaning up. By 12 am we’re running stuff to the storage unit.

And a funny possibility happens. I’m packing the van haphazardly at this point. In the back is a bunch of my most valued used biodiesel oily crap. In the front is a bunch of food, clean clothes, dishes. That dividing line between the class supplies and the personal stuff is starting to get really thin again, dammit.

Filthy oily stuff might be touching something lacy. It’s the last of my personal crap from the house- and one of the boxes has a used syringe laying prominently on top so I don’t forget to dispose of it properly.

I get prescription Vitamin B-12 injections as part of the Lyme/mercury treatment. The B12 gives me quite a bit of energy and this week I’ve been injecting the stuff dutifully, to help keep up with the stress.

Only I’ve been too busy to go to my own house and haven’t been there in days, and dont’ have my sharps container with me. It’s normally no big deal- I re-sheathe the syringes and had them in a sock drawer here till I can get to the sharps container.

Only now there’s no more sock drawer at Tom’s, and everything’s going along to on my rounds from Tom’s to the shop to storage to the house. I decided to stick the used syringes on top so I don’t forget to drop them in the sharps box when I swing through at my other house.

I’m also transporting guns to safe storage- they can’t be at my house as there’s not even a key for the front door- we never lock the place. In the US, there are fairly lax rules about ownership of hunting rifles and shotguns, which means that I dont’ know those rules well as all I’ve ever owned is a shotgun. I think there’s something on the books about transporting the ammo and the gun in the trunk and not the driver’s compartment.

Since I first learned guns while living near New York City where guns are completely illegal (and that’s a good thing in the city, by the way), I’m ultra paranoid about the possible consequences of transportation. I think I’m wrong to be so paranoid but I’m ignorant of the law. Which we know is no excuse.

Anyway, so now I"m paranoid, delerious, I’ve got a van with no trunk, so now we’ve got guns, ammo, all my unlabeled medicinal herbs that probably look like drugs to the wrong cop, me being really tired and delerious, the van’s starting to act up and I keep thinking I"ll break down, it’s 2 am. I’m heading into West Oakland, incidentally, a high-crime high-drugs area. Tom’s driving in front of me with expired registration on his vehicle. I have a gigantic bag of new syringes (with no prescription) that a student gave me after the last class for titration supplies- the syringes sprawled over to Tom’s house because I was using a few of them for my B-12 injections. It’s another example of that blurry dividing line between my class activities and my personal life. Steal some of my titration supplies for prescription drug use, oh yeah baby.

I’ve got an open cardboard box full of socks with used syringes sitting on top. Of course, being from NYC, the sight of used syringes makes me think of drug abusers littering the public sidewalks with heroin syringes and so forth. My paranoid side thinks that if I get stopped by a cop if my van or brain act up on the drive, I’ll look like a gun-toting, heroin-shooting, oily-crap-collecting crazy person. And go straight to jail till it gets straightened out.

And, of course, mixed casually with all this questionable evidence of laws being broken, there’s a sandwich bad half full of unidentified unlabeled white powder floating around back there someplace. Magnesol.

This is becoming more of a blog about transitions than a blog about biodiesel. .

Tom’s moving out of his place this weekend. He’s been there for three years, I’ve been a big part of life here as well, usually like a 4th roommate, so it’s basically just like I’m moving as well. It’s a huge move. I’ll miss this house, I’ll miss the stability. It had really been my stable home for the last few years, not the other places where I’ve lived during that time. The house has been such a safe zone for me. Last year so much of that Twilight Zone ‘last hours of a plane flight’ time was spent in fantasizing about coming home and turning the key and walking in the front door.

It’s pretty exciting. I’m about to move, as well, and go on the road, and I feel like I’m jumping off a cliff into a completely new life. I’ll have barely any connection to the Bay Area after August 1.

Return time, unknown.

Now investigating language school in Guatemala to regain my Spanish, and looking into going off to work on a potable-water development project down there afterwards, 6 months from now. Where I’ll be between mid-October and then, I have no idea yet. Return time, unknown.

Brad, the other roommate who’s been here at Tom’s house since the beginning, is off to Europe for the summer, moving his stuff into storage, enjoying some freedom from the house/work routine he’s been on for years. Return time to normal life, unknown.

Tom’s about to spend a couple of months floating in and out of town, helping a cousin build a really interesting “tsunami-proof” house on the Oregon coast. He’s moving his stuff into storage and building an electronics lab at Zion Labs (ie to move his ‘business’ home office stuff from the house he’s giving up), staying with me part-time till I leave town, and generally exploring some less-plans-having freedom for the next few months (some of his paid work is somewhat place-independent). He’ll spend some time out on the road with me, is headed back to Africa at some point for more appropriate technology work this fall, and after many years of stability in the same town, is generally planning on floating as long as work allows it and until he decides on something more interesting and better. Return time, unknown.

We’ve been packing the house, and Tom and I have been building out the new office from raw space above another studio. For 10 days now the house has been piled with half-filled boxes while dusty old possessions no one’s seen for years have been resurfacing. We’ve been figuring out where to stash our possessions, what furniture and kitchenware to get rid of, and whether we can manage to stuff it all into our respective storage units. We’ve been all detangling our lives so as to go our separate ways. I’ve been watching the calendar count down to August 1 and continuing to feel my insane anxiety about how little I get done each day and how long the damn to-do list is while I deal with this unplanned-for bump in my schedule of Tom-moving-related things to do.

When I was 5 my family moved to America by way of a fairly complicated series of moves around Europe and even more moves around NYC before settling in the Jersey City projects.

The constant moving took a year and a half and I remember strongly this wistful looks around the old place the moment before leaving forever- and the feeling that we didn’t know what we were getting into next.

Next stop, America. By way of Rome. By way of Vienna. In the hope that the wheels of world events wouldn’t send us to Israel (most Russians emigrating from the USSR at that point in 1978 were either Jewish or, like us, they were pretending to be Jews. Probably the only time in history that non-Jews have intentionally pretended to be Jewish for political reasons, rather than the other way around).

We developed a ritual of ‘pausing’ and sitting for a moment just before leaving the last place, town, country, continent, forever. To make sure we honored all the good memories and paused to cement them firmly into a shimmering mental flavor called nostalgia. But, more importantly, to give ourselves a moment to contemplate the exciting unknowns ahead. Before jumping off the edge of the known world…

I am reminded of that feeling now, the ‘last looks’ around the house. Taking it in, trying to make sure I remember the good times and the good light and privacy and the intense times and the growth that happened here for me and the healing.

In a month I’ll be gone for points unknown. Return time, unknown.

Tom and I now have shops, plural. Not that we’ve split up our shop, that is, but we’ve rented a second shop for the summer. It’s getting out of control the number of landlords I have.

Our shop at Zion Labs (not it’s real name) is a nice, clean, indoor kind of a place run by a Serious Artist (ie a sculptor who actually has name recognition, not just someone making stuff for Burning Man only) who does large and very personality-filled sculpture which incidentally also make it’s appearance at Burning Man every year. Occasionally it sells, too- maybe that’s the distinction between Burning Man ‘art’ and Real Art? oops, I think I just insulted a whole buncha starving artist types.

Anyways, Tom and I have a tinkering shop at Zion Labs. I love Zion and my landlord there, Michael Zion (not his real name). It’s the nicest working shop environment I’ve ever had, and is getting nicer by the minute (like, seriously, they just installed a whirlpool bathtub in one of the bathrooms and a Japanese heated toilet seat. These men are Masters of eBay when it comes to electronic and plumbing gadgets). We just moved the old makeshift kitchen to a larger, sunlit space, and Zion Labs now has an awesome community room that will nearly rival my home kitchen when it’s done. I’m looking forward to cooking there more frequently.

Unfortunately, we can’t really make massive, nasty messes, such as running a grinder all day on Chinese Harbor Freight-derived pieces of lead-painted metal, or burning petro-liquids or even bio-liquids without disturbing the exalted peace at the studio.

Tom’s got a huge project to build a portable hot tub vehicle- it’s been on his Life List Of Things To Accomplish for years now and the pieces are finally in place. The project involved an enormous amount of demolition- he’s obsessed with making it be a self-powered electric vehicle (and , as he says, is that even legal- people in water inside an EV?) rather than a trailered system. The donor ‘trailer’ started life as a truck and will eventually at a later phase of the project become an electric vehicle. The engineering involved is really fun. The amount of grinding involved is not.

On my own life list was a very short two months of prep for tour (yikes, it’s so much less than two months now- I actually wrote most of this blog entry weeks ago) . I have the Turk Burner optimization project, which involves many sessions of burning liquids and smoky residue. I’m also working on my own metal-grinding and space-hogging albatross, the processor trailer system for the tour, which involved an immense amount of grinding and wirebrushing a few weeks ago.

We rented another space at NIMBY (yes, it’s real name) for the summer and have taken to making our messes there at odd hours.

NIMBY is an enormous warehouse along the lines of the shop we’d had at “Machine Shop” (also not it’s real name), where largely Burning Man artists and gear-heads rent shipping containers and make large stuff in the main space. We’ve staked out a corner of one bay that has a nice 5-ton bridge crane. It’s a tool I’ve been lusting over for about 6 years now. I can’t wait to build a large biodiesel processor there sometime- flipping a big tank around to weld on fittings should become very easy.

The Burning Man-dictated building season is in full swing. Our end of the shop is taken over by other beginners like ourselves- there’s a much nicer metal fabrication shop in another end of the building where the guys who seem to know what they’re doing are arrayed, and I go beg bandsaw use from them occasionally. We’re fumbling with grinders and sawzalls over in Beginners’ Bay.

There’s a guy building a Burning Man art car (yes, I do think that’s generally a silly concept), and a big group of giggly beer-drinking girls with their first little MIG welder and a bunch of shiny new equipment who are working their way through learning to weld by making some ‘trees’ of some sort for Burning Man (and seem to have no comprehension that Tom could possibly be doing his big project car for something other than Burning Man). It’s great to see a bunch of girls with beers spending their down time playing with tools while boyfriends stop by and stand around looking unskilled.

It’s really cute. NIMBY’s been generally male-dominated, sorta bikerish, grimy, and tough. It’s big fundraiser for a couple of years was scheduling a HUGE Fight Club ‘bash’:
http://www.sfbg.com/39/21/cover_fight.html

A few weeks ago I attended a much milder and cutesy Burning Man version of the same, over at NIMBY- a Mad Max themed party, complete with Thunderdome, in which combatants attached to bungee cords inside the Thunderdome fought it out- with foam clubs.

Most videos on the web of Death Guild Thunderdome seem to show big aggro guys trying to bash each other- whereas the reality was the combatants seem to spend time trying not to piss themselves laughing while swinging the soft foam bats and getting upended by the bungee cord action. While getting heckled by a few hundred costumed drunk freaks who’ve climbed over the dome and are trying to not fall off. It’s amazing how few people have died at Burning Man, by the way, considering.

The way the process works, by the way, is that they strap a couple of evenly-sized combatants into climbing harnesses (??), attach them to the bungees which still allow their feet to touch the ground but have an amazing ability to flip the fighter upside down at the exact wrong moment, and kinda throw them at each other.

There are a pair of staff guys who handle each fighter and have the ability to pull them apart if anything gets too intense. As intense as fighting with foam bats can get, that is, especially when you can’t control the ability to stay upright.

The fight starts with the guys pulling the fighters back to the ends of the Thunderdome

From where they release the people, who proceed to fly at each other and maybe even score a hit if they’re not giggling too hard to see the target.

Since the bungees seriously handicap your mobility, use of legs and wrestling is a bit more effective than the use of the foam bats:

Snook, the guy who runs NIMBY, is an amazing master of the waste stream. And he’s efficient at dispensing of the good stuff he runs across. He’ll do things like acquire 200 shipping containers and turn them around to new homes in a matter of days, without having to do any storage in the midst of the transaction.

He’s the exact opposite of Jim from the Machine Shop, the insane guy whom I called The Investor in this blog a couple of years ago- half of the art of handling the good stuff that moves around in the waste stream here, lies in the art of passing it along rather than storing it for years like Jim was doing. I thank my lucky stars pretty much every time I go into NIMBY or Zion shops, that I no longer have to deal with Jim’s hoarding and insane inefficiency. But that’s a whole other blog.

My main problem there is avoiding ‘taking’ anything Snook tries to pawn off on me. I get these nice tours of the latest acquisitions from him periodically, and always feel good at the end if I’ve avoided becoming an owner of some more ‘crap’- motors, pumps, plumbing, valves, and more. It’s like window shopping for tinkers.

In the Firefox browser, there’s a field in one of the upper toolbars that allows you to quick-search google, amazon, ebay, and other search engines. Google has an auto-complete feature whereby it suggests various words as you begin to type in a search term.

Tom googled me the other day as ‘girl mark’ and it turns up as a Firefox Google auto-complete. (I of course didn’t believe him and immediately looked it up on a public computer I’d never been on before, to make sure it’s not Google ‘remembering’ what search terms he’s used in the past).

Once you get past “girl ma” you get the choice of “girl mark biodiesel” or “girl mark". I guess that besides the fact that ‘girl mark’ is a weird enough search term, enough people have apparently looked me up that I’m institutionalized up there in Firefox (regular Google pages, the ones that come up when you just visit google.com, don’t pop up the same auto-complete terms but instead suggest ones you’ve looked up in the past)

15 more minutes of creepy fame… all for spending time online.

Even more amusingly, on the Google search results, the Biodiesel Homebrew Guide has been tagged with the Google tag.

The tag says that this page is about “petroleum".

“Reactor Mechanics and System Tricks” biodiesel homebrewing class

I’m trying to gauge interest for a new class format, for a one-day ’system tricks’ class for more advanced beginners who want to learn more in-depth information about homebrew equipment and see it in action going through all of it’s steps. This is a hands-on class where we will do all of the things we’re discussing, in a real , working setting.

This class is geared to people who already know how to make biodiesel, either in a lab-scale or one-liter setting, or for those who already homebrew but would like to compare notes with me on how I manage my system. This may become a two-day class at some point if I find that it needs that much time to run through all of the proposed syllabus listed below (two-day class would be a weekend activity)

I’m tentatively offering a new week-day class, sometime during the week of July 9th or July 23rd (one weekday of either week) in which we run actual full-size batches, in a real reactor at someone’s actual site, and try to run the class through every single step so as to discuss ‘tricks’ and tips on reactor mechanics. Ive been obsessing about how beginning biodieselers (and some advanced people) don’t tend to use secondary containment, tend to make more messes than they should, tend to gas themselves with methanol by draining glycerine unsafely, etc. I’d like to do this class as a way to help students overcome this aspect of the learning curve- the common equipment-based mistakes having to do with operating procedures. This class will probably be in Oakland or Berkeley or someplace nearby. I will announce the class on these lists when it’s finalized.

Let me know which days would work for you- a one-day class during the weekdays, somewhere between July 9-11 or July 24-27 is when this is likely to occur. If you can not do weekdays, let me know as well in case the weekend of July 28 becomes available for me.

Send all inquiries to classregistration@girlmark.com and put ‘equipment tricks class’ in the subject line.

The class will run 9-5 and will be $70 for the day.

This class is geared to people who already know how to make biodiesel, either in a lab-scale or one-liter setting or who already homebrew but would like to compare notes with me on how I manage my system. You may take this class after attending a regular homebrewing class taught by someone else as well as if you have learned how to make biodiesel on your own. We dont go into a lot of detail on titration and chemistry here so that’s the info you should have ‘down’ already on your own prior to taking this “system tricks” class.

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I’ll try to write up a better description/syllabus in the next few days. What comes to mind is something like this:

Start a batch of fuel in a large Appleseed homebrew processor.
Discuss safe heating, tank fires, use of hydronic heating methods, and heat exchangers. Demonstrate heat exchanger-based Appleseed.
Discuss some electrical safety interconnects proposed for heating element control in ‘regular’ electric heaters.
Discuss tricks for measuring lye safely
Discuss tricks for measuring methanol safely
Discuss pumps for pumping methanol safely
Demonstrate air-powered pumps and discuss air compressor requirements and electrical consumption if using air pumps for reactor mixing.
Discuss materials compatibility with various fuel processes and chemicals used, and discuss where inappropriate plastics can still be used with fewer consequences.
Discuss sight tubes and sight glass sources, ways of using them, ways of installing them, what to look for in industrial parts catalogs
Demonstrate use of powered methanol/lye mixers that are not just passive carboy method. Discuss pros and cons of both types of systems.
Discuss methanol vapor release to atmosphere.
Discuss fire safety issues.

drain a batch of glycerine in another Appleseed (my processor trailer) and discuss how to avoid methanol vapor exposure during this process
discuss/demonstrate how to separate glycerine from biodiesel to minimize emulsions. Most beginner mistakes having to do with emulsion are actually a separation issue where the person inadvertently contaminates their wash tank with extra soap because they haven’t separated the glycerine from the biodiesel completely. There are some tests to ensure this is actually done.
Discuss standpipe separating tanks, and demonstrate several ways of designing them.
Discuss ways to minimize contamination with unwanted material.
Discuss various kinds of quick-connects and other ways to deal with the messes caused by hoses. Most spills and other hazards are probably due to homebrewers relying on hose rather than pipe.
Demonstrate the use of hard plumbing and ways of managing multiple valves
Demonstrate different methods of labeling the process and the steps, and demonstrate one system using a ‘protocol checklist’ to minimize confusion when operating multiple valves.

Transfer finished fuel from processor trailer to wash tanks and discuss washing equipment
Demonstrate several types of washing nozzles and important considerations
Discuss closed versus open wash tanks
Discuss venting and air displacement
Demonstrate use of non-siphoning overflow mistwash tank plumbing
Demonstrate use of sump pump to move water to a drain
Demonstrate soap test titration
Discuss emulsions (I will make one for us to play with)
Break emulsion with various ways
Discuss wash tank heating methods
Discuss water disposal and ways of separating oils and water and what happens when it is done with various methods
Discuss/demonstrate water neutralizing

Drain wash water from first wash and discuss “how you know when you’re finished with washing”
Go into more detail on emulsions and water retention
Demonstrate separation of water and biodiesel using various kinds of tanks
Discuss “white stuff” that isn’t emulsion
Discuss materials compatibility and water hardness issues with regards to washing
Discuss three different drying methods for getting water out of washed biodiesel
Discuss tests for dryness of finished biodiesel

Test some finished biodiesel for quality in various ways

When the batch that we’re making is finished processing, we can perform an 80%/20% two-stage base-base process and demonstrate various equipment methods required to make it easier
We will follow it with a 5% water prewash for minimizing soap in wash. There are many ways of handling this complex process (80/20 followed by 5%) and we’ll demonstrate and discuss several possible solutions to the unwanted complexity

We will burn some glycerine in a homemade glycerine burner and demonstrate ways of moving the heat safely to heat a batch of oil for another batch of biodiesel.

I’ll briefly discuss filtration though this isn’t terribly complex
We’ll discuss different hosing material and tricks for handling/wrangling lots of hose

We’ll demonstrate a ‘cubee handling’ system for minimizing the hassle involved in processing oil that comes in 5 gallon cubes
We’ll demonstrate straining of oil
We’ll discuss, possibly only theoretically as it cant be shown in a one-day class, the ‘heat and let settle’ method of dewatering wet oil
We’ll discuss fire safety if you choose to dewater oil using boiling temperatures.

To express interest in the class and certain dates for the class, please email me at classregistration@girlmark.com with ’system tricks class’ in the subject line.
Info on my other classes is at www.girlmark.com/tour

Mark

you know, like friction. The unseen stuff that keeps metal parts stuck when you can’t figure out what else is holding the damn thing together.

oooh, I’m getting so excited about the trip. I’m having an awesome down day because I just did a marathon work session the past few days, and got the three (currently) most difficult items on my to-do list completed. These things had been blocking my path to most of the rest of the 150-item to-do list.

I celebrated that night. Only 147 more challenging items to go on the to-do list before August 1, but at least it’s not 150.

I’ve had lots to write since then- but it hurts to type. This was supposed to be my typing and computer day.

Yesterday I was welding crazy repairs into a Heavy Metal Object (my extremely heavy duty Class IV hitch) and dropped it onto a middle finger yesterday when a swivel vise went swivel-y while I was loosening the Object without properly supporting it. I’m lucky I didn’t break it in the process.

A lot of bad words were immediately sworn. I need that middle finger for communicating with other bad drivers, don’tcha know?

I like to think of it as ‘I dropped a 150-item To-Do list onto my finger’.

The hitch was broken in a very bizarre way when I got the van- there was a an unusable 2″ square x 6″ long solid steel mount stuck in the receiver, and it’s been a mammoth task of figuring out how to get it out of there ever since. It’s defeated several very skilled mechanics and Big Metal Shit specialists, the type that do 4x4 fun and games in the middle of no-where and know how to get stuck metal fixed- and also defeated a body shop.

Last week we’d chained the mount to the building at my shop, and I floored the accelerator and drove the van away (after disabling airbags). trying to knock it’s stickshion loose. All that happened was that the building, a cavernous 25,000 square foot warehouse, made an incredibly loud BOOM. The piece stayed put. Eventually after some other macho men insisted on trying to fix it for me and failed, I cut it out with a grinder, bothered every tool-owning fabrication guy in the shop in the process, and eventually welded a new piece of receiver stock onto it. Man what a mess.

I keep expanding the tour schedule. I’m also considering adding a couple of weekday classes in Berkeley in July- I’m a bit sick of working weekends and want to try out small, week day classes where I demonstrate a different set of techniques than in my two-day lab classes (more info coming shortly). Let me know if you’re interested and what day might be good. These would be a hands-on-with-a-processor kinds of demos, not just lab work classes.

Looks like I might have a Vancouver class in late July, I haven’t taught abroad before and don’t know how that’ll go. Will have to mail workshop materials there, no way to cross the border with my class stuff and I doubt they’ll give me a work visa!

Below is some info on the Milwaukee class.

I also have a similar class in Lee NH that I just added, which will include a tour of some really nice farm-scale biodiesel equipment that Dorn Cox, Joe Pearson, and others have been working on for a year+ now. The project has also grown sunflower oil, and have been experimenting with a manual press for on-farm production of biofuels. Dorn toured some of the Argentina biodiesel-producing farmers a couple of years ago and some of his processor ideas are based on their process. If you’re farming on a smaller-scale this might be the class for you.

*************************************
I’ve added a few more classes to my tour schedule-

*Milwaukee, WI August 25-26* and Lee, New Hampshire (near Dover
NH) September 22-23

Also in the works is a Vancouver, Canada workshop in the end of
July, and a possible DC-area class in the fall. I’m looking for
more class locations in the Southeast in the late fall.

The Milwaukee class and the New Hampshire class are similar, with the
New Hampshire class having more information for farmers as I’m hosted by
Oyster River Biofuel Initiative and our host facility has been making
biodiesel for their farm and growing test plots of sunflower for oil.

**************

Some info on the Milwaukee class:

Swee of Futuregreen.net generously offered me space to
teach a workshop in Milwaukee- and we’ve agreed on August 25-26. It’ll
be my usual two day, hands-on biodiesel homebrewing class, which has
evolved a bit since the last Wisconsin classes I taught in 2004. Please
pre-register via my web site, we have limited space of course and need
to know who’s coming. Direct questions to me by email (
classregistration@girlmark.com ) rather than calling the store, as they
won’t be able to answer questions about the class.

At the end of the class, we will be building a few processors for
students who wish to buy themselves a b100supply.com kit of processor
parts- this is completely optional, and you can help the others build
their processors even if you don’t get your own kit parts.
www.b100supply.com is providing a discount on their parts kits for this
workshop.

More info is below:

Approximate schedule for Milwaukee class:
Saturday and Sunday, August 25-26, 10-4ish (probably 4:30 on Sunday,
realistically)

register at www.girlmark.com/tour

****************************************
some suggested reading:

Please take a look through www.biodieselcommunity.org for some info (and
photos) of what the process looks like.

www.b100supply.com also has a GREAT ‘biodiesel library’ with a lot of good
articles in it.

I’ll have copies of Biodiesel Homebrew Guide for sale at the class:
www.localb100.com/book.html and I"ll also have a few copies of Jennifer
Radtke’s book ‘Not a Gas Station’, which is about starting the Biofuel
Oasis commercial fueling station (see www.backyardbiodiesel.org for details) . Each of these is $15.

****************************************
Saturday:
10-noon- lecture: general biofuels introduction, SVO conversions and
diesel blending (ie DSE, etc) discussions, cold weather issues,
emissions, discussion of early biofuels research that has gotten us
where we are today with biodiesel, potential mechanical problems,
explanation of biodiesel chemistry and the basic process

noon-12:30 demonstration of the basic process

12:30-1:15 lunch

1:15-4 : students practice titration and make 1-liter batches, and we’ll
discuss the full-size processor I’m bringing on the trailer outside and
how it works.

During the basic practice you’ll practice oil water content testing,
blank titration, titration with a burette as well as cheaper equipment,
phenol red and turmeric titrations, really nasty oil as well as normal
oil, 5% glycerine remix prewash and two-stage 80/20 base process, along with
intentionally making mistakes for Sunday’s class.

If we get through the basic 1-liter batches quickly enough, I"ll start
the next day’s topics and demonstrations on Saturday afternoon.

Sunday:
10-12:30 lecture and demo: washing, biodiesel equipment, quality control
and quality testing discussion and demonstration, and a more detailed
discussion of quality problems that can affect vehicles.

12:30-1:15 lunch

1:15-2:15 -students do ‘open lab’ practice, with help from some
experienced biodieselers who are coming to visit- you can perform
quality tests, wash your test batches from the day before, make more
test batches with different oil and different variables if you wish, do
ethanol-based biodiesel, attempt to fix some of the ‘mistakes’ we’ll
intentionally make (ie emulsion and ‘glop’), and more . You can also
start on your processor if you wish to instead. Intermittent lecturing
will take place during the lab, on topics such as ethanol-based
biodiesel and alternative lab techniques

2:15-4 plumbing/techniques demo and processor building (and continuation
of open lab, with help available for either lab or processor build- you
can filter back and forth between activities).

Upcoming biodiesel and SVO workshops and events in Northern California:

June 16: Homebrewing workshop with Andrew Morris
June 20: Introductory biodiesel fundamentals workshop with Bill Michell
June 30-July 1: Homebrewing workshop and equipment build with Maria
‘Mark’ Alovert
July 5: Biofuels: Sustainability through Technology - The Californian
Model panel discussion at PG&E
July, Berkeley: possible weekday one-day hands-on processor demonstration and ’system tips’ class with Maria ‘Mark’ Alovert.

Please contact individual instructors for more information. Contact info
listed below.

*****************************************************

June 16, Oakland:

Hands-on Biodiesel Homebrewing
With Andrew Morris

In West Oakland, June 16 9:30a 5:30p $90
Including Lunch – Limit 6 Participants
Second person from the same household ½ price
To register: email morris1524@yahoo.com
This class is designed to give you the hands on experience you need to
begin making your own high quality fuel.

Topics Include: We will Demo & Practice
Basic Chemistry of Making Biodiesel
Oil Quality Testing - Free Fatty Acid Titration and
Quantitative Water Test
Calculations for Methanol and Catalyst Use
Fuel Quality Testing For Conversion
Washing Techniques
Separting Fuel From Glycerol and Water
Processor Operation
Avoiding & Breaking Emulsion
Processor Design & Building Tips
Basic Safety Guidlines

This class will combine lab, practical, theory and Q&A.
Email to hold a Space - I will send you my address and where to send
your check: email morris1524@yahoo.com
Recommended Resources:
http://www.biodieselcommunity.org
http://biodiesel.infopop.cc
http://www.biodieselpictures.com
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/biodieselbasics/
http://www.biodieselnow.com/

***********************************************************
June 30-July 1, Berkeley

Comprehensive Homebrew Biodiesel Class and equipment build with Maria
‘Mark’ Alovert
Biodiesel Homebrewing/Equipment Building Class with Maria ‘girl Mark’
Alovert of http://biodieselcommunity.org

Berkeley, CA

Saturday and Sunday, June 30-July 1
10-4

to register: see http://girlmark.com/tour

This class will build some www.B100supply.com
equipment

*************************

Biodiesel is a clean-burning diesel alternative made from any natural
oil or fat. It can be made easily in a backyard or garage environment.
In this class, you will learn how to make your own clean burning diesel
fuel alternative and how to build the processing equipment to make it at
home safely…

This is a comprehensive, hands-on workshop on making homebrew biodiesel
fuel out of waste restaurant fryer oil, which can usually be acquired
for ‘free’.
Most of the class focuses on the chemistry behind biodiesel homebrewing
and quality control, and we’ll be doing a lot of ‘lab’ work making test
batches, and variations on different formulas.

The feel of the class is a bit like the mad scientist version of “high
school chem lab” (hopefully without the spitballs and giggling)- you’ll
be doing hands-on lab exercises in small groups, which will teach you
how to make and troubleshoot your home batches- and we’ll be learning
the chemistry basics that underlie making good quality fuel for your
vehicle.

This is a fast-paced class, and I strongly recommend that you read this
website first: http://www.biodieselcommunity.org
to get a background for this subject.

Processor build:
At the end of the class, we will build biodiesel processors for students
who wish to buy parts ahead of time (deadline for kit orders: June 16).
If you don’t want to make your own processor you can still help build
the others’ systems. We will also discuss heat exchangers, solar thermal
heating of the process, some minimal methanol recovery information, and
other equipment topics.

Parts kits info: The optional parts kits are provided by
www.b100supply.com. They are offering a $50 discount to those who are
registered for the workshop (you’ll get an e-coupon that you can use at
the b100supply site). June 16 deadline is for b100supply only, the class
will accept students till we’re full. The past few Berkeley classes have
sold out so you may want to register early.

Optional book: I will also have for sale at the class, the Biodiesel
Homebrew Guide book: www.localb100.com/book.html

To register, please see the online registration at
http://www.girlmark.com/tour

***********************************************************
June 20, Menlo Park:
Biodiesel Fundamentals
at TechShop:
Wed, June 20, 7:30-9 pm
with Bill Michell

to register and for more information, please see Techshop website:
http://www.techshop.ws/take_classes.html?a=1&i=957339

In this class you will learn how to make any diesel car run on Waste
Vegetable Oil (WVO) or Biodiesel. WVO is free from most restaurants if
you offer to pick it up. The class covers Biodiesel fundamentals with a
focus on using Waste Vegetable Oil as a fuel. Educate yourself on the
simple modifications that can be made to any diesel engine which will
allow you to be free of foreign oil and gas gouging at the pump! After
this class students will be able to make the informed choice about
whether or not making diesel fuel from vegetable oil at home makes
sense. See a Mercedes- Benz 300 SDL running on free (Sushi) Waste
Vegetable Oil!

*************************************************************
July 5, San Francisco:*

*Biofuels: Sustainability through Technology - The Californian Model*

When: Thursday, July 05, 2007 12:00 PM-4:00 PM
Where: PG&E Energy Center, CR PEC Conference Center 851 Howard St. San
Francisco, CA

Panel discussion & Q/A about issues contributing to pollution by
transportation, as well as the latest technologies in both practical and
conceptual biofuel systems/products.

Part of the Overseas Research Project(ORP). ORP is a research project
carried out by approximately 40 Master’s degree Manufacturing
Engineering students in their final year at Cambridge University. The
research topic ‘Sustainability through Technology: the Californian
Model’, which observes the technological approach to environmental
sustainability, rather than lifestyle or habitual changes.

120 people

PEC Host: Robert Marcial 2.5177

Contact: Heath Blount 505-577-1810
heath.blount@gmail.com
San Francisco Biofuels Cooperative

*************************************
July, Berkeley:
possible weekday one-day hands-on processor demonstration class with
Maria ‘Mark’ Alovert.
$65

I am considering offering a one-day class during the week (all of my
weekends are full) in which I will show you around a ‘real’ biodiesel
processor site and will run the system through all the steps needed to
make biodiesel. This will include washing, separating glycerine, drying,
etc.

This class is designed for either beginner students who have done a lot
of reading, or advanced beginner students who have made test batches or
have made some biodiesel. The point of the class is to introduce you to
the tricks and tips for avoiding spills, making high quality fuel, safe
handling, avoiding emulsion, and other physical aspects of running your
biodiesel processor.

However, I suggest that you attend a ‘real’ lab class such as my or
Andrew Morris’ classes in June first so as to become comfortable with
the chemistry concepts behind homebrewing, or at least make some test
batches on your own first using the www.biodieselcommunity.org
instructions or those in my book at www.localb100.com/book.html

Please email me if you are interested in the class and let me know you
availability during the week of July 9th or July 23 (no weekends).

classregistration@girlmark.com
*************************************

There’s a song about traveling on The Road that I’ve been listening to over and over again, in Russian, by a Russian band I just discovered recently. The stupidly simple but poetic lyrics make me wish translation worked better from one language to the next; the nearly-hoarse, screaming singer longingly tongues the rolling R of the Russian word “roads” in a way that makes English R’s seem terribly inadequate for the craft of singing. The song running over and over again in my head makes me reflect on the universal human longing for movement and change and learning as I consider leaving the Bay Area for a while with my wrenches and my newly-healed hands and my new-found health, and spending a few months married to my rolling steel box and it’s finicky engine heart. As I pack to go on The Road for what may be months and months and think about my goals for what I want to learn on the way, I realized that I’m almost recreating a trip I did in 1994.

At the time, I’d just spent almost 5 years intensely studying traditional Appalachian music and the folklife associated with the athletic style I played and the ballad style I sang. I was a passionate devotee. The idea of doing anything else was nearly unthinkable. Yet hiding in the background was my upbringing in New York City, and a brief foray into the punk rock world, and scary abandoned places to explore and street life and community and the smug feeling of fitting solidly into a subculture that rejected the rest of the world.

In 1993 I tried a semester of community college, and made the mistake of taking a writing course in which all of the suppressed clash between my current rural existance in the bluegrass/old time community and the uber-urban punk rock lifestyle came to a head. I wrote a couple of semi-fictional stories grappling with sexuality issues and a certain self-destructiveness I’d witnessed in a number of people I’d loved way back when in my teenage dropout Lower East Side punk rock days.

I was in an informal chemistry study group in the little Southern community college- I spent lunches studying for our chemistry class with a group of Fundamentalist Christian kids, whom I secretly regarded as an anthropology project. I visited one guy’s Pentacostal church in the mountains where they spoke in tongues and essentially went into trances, discussed another girl’s life goals and unfulfilled wishes and financial and class realities, and when it came time to read each other our English class writing assignments I was highly amused that their projects consisted of essays about loving Jesus and mine consisted of semi-fictionalized stories about my first uncomfortable discovery at 17 that someone I respected was actually a heroin-addicted gay street prostitute struggling with his denial of both and the dance with death that those activities implied.

Somewhere that spring I broke up with my nice, somewhat timid boyfriend, said good-bye to the music I was pledged to. Worried a little about what lay ahead. And went on the road. The road had been calling. It was telling me to go visit Austin, TX- I’d just discovered classic country music and it’s various songs of longing, and I had the idea that there were other hipsters my age doing the retro music thing there that I might be able to play music with. The boyfriend had insisted all spring that there was no way I was going to make the trip, that the car would break down, that I didn’t have any money, that it was an unsafe idea. It’s a bad idea to tell a New York City girl that something is unsafe and she should be scared, especially when everyone else had been telling me to straighten up and keep working in factories to support that, and that at 22 I should be a responsible, boring sort of adult because there was something to be afraid of out there in the real world.

His lectures did eventually change my mind about Texas itself, but I left him that summer and went on the road with $30 and my very portable wholesale jewelry business and my car-doctoring wrenches and my ancient, fuel-efficient car, and put on thousands of miles seeing the country under my own power. I eventually parked the car at a friend’s place in Colorado and rode freight trains to Mexico, then tramped around Mexico all summer with a homemade burlap backpack (to deter theft of a perceived expensive item), got arrested/kidnapped by cops with another American girl, fought off various tweakers and glue huffers who tried to steal our stuff, slept on the streets, hung out with people whose political beliefs dictated a harsh, idealistic lifestyle, rode more freight trains, got better at Spanish, fell in love with Mexico City, and returned to the USA never to feel fear of people again. I thank the road daily for that loss of fear. A few months later I found myself in the midst of a tight-knit community of urban homesteaders in NYC, found my place in life, said good-bye to the idea of stability, and became everything I am as a result of that experience. I think I’ve managed to do some good in the process.

In some ways I feel like I’m recreating the feeling now. I was sick for about 7 years. I nearly lost use of my hands last year. Everything has just come back, just as it was in 1999, like I get a second chance at all this. I feel like I just got a new lease on life, like I’m reborn, like I can do anything I want, be whomever I want. I’m reconsidering everything. Occasionally I’m not even sure if I want to be girl Mark, the biodiesel advocate= there are so many other identities I’ve been and they’ve been waiting for me to get better ever since the 90’s.

I’m getting the van together and looking at maps and distances and thinking about the long, hot drives through August in the Midwest. I’ll be packing a bunch of audiobooks for the drive time, and trying to do some formal studying in the process. I’m structuring the drives with plenty of down time, hoping to spend it studying various things in preparation for going back to school. I’m looking forward to dusty coffeehouses in podunk Midwestern towns and seeing some new state parks and learning a bit more about America and about myself.