My Story

Hello, my name is Israel Kloss. I am a Vice President of the Northern Virginia Biodiesel Cooperative. We have been advocating the expansion of Biodiesel use across the greater Washington D.C. area and Cell Alert has offered to help us launch a campaign delivering Biodiesel Alerts announcing the availability of Diesel/Biodiesel vehicles aroiund the nation.

So here's my story.

I am an amateur environmentalist. Last year, I sold my Honda Insight (50 mpg) after reading an article about the sustainability, environmental, national security and financial advantages of biodiesel over diesel and petroleum and even many electric-hybrids in terms of net energy gain. After further research, I learned that vegetable oil can be burned directly by diesel engines with only an engine conversion.

So I set up a Cell Alert Craigslist Alert to my email and cell phone to notify me every time there was a diesel vehicle posted on the Washington DC Craigslist. The moment the vehicle I wanted came up on Craigslist, I was at the door of the seller test-driving the 1997 VW Jetta TDI that I bought. I later learned that the car was sought after so highly that there were 3 out-of-state buyers offering to purchase it if I had not.

You can read the story of converting my diesel Jetta to vegetable oil here.

I now have the excellent advantage of a tri-fuel vehicle. I can now burn diesel, biodiesel or Vegetable oil with just the flip of a switch on my dashbord.

I have only purchased 2 tanks of diesel fuel in the past year. I run almost exclusively on the vegetable oil from the Chinese Restaurant next door. I am going on 1 year of driving nearly free. But let me be clear. Vegetable oil conversion is not for everyone. It's only for the environmentally *and* mechanically committed. It is higher maintenance and unfortunately, conversion can still void the warranty of many vehicles.

Biodiesel is a much more viable option for most people and we have it readily available around the greater DC area and many places nationwide.

Biodiesel Widget & Bioiesel Vehicle Alerts & Political Accountability

As a Vice President of Northern Virginia Biodiesel Coop and the Founder of Cell Alert (a recent applicant to 3 NetSquared challenges), numerous people have asked me about biodiesel conversion on facebook, twitter, blogger.com, etc. They all express a frustration with the following problems:

1) Getting notification when a diesel car is for sale online before someone else gets it.

2) Finding Biodiesel filling stations

Biodiesel Solutions Proposal

To solve these 2 problems, my proposal is simple.

Solution 1a -- Bioidiesel Alerts

Cell Alert solves the first problem, so Cell Alert will create and disseminate Diesel Vehicle Alerts through a large Yahoo Pipe meta feed collection.

Solution 1b --  Bioidiesel Widget

Compile and merge diesel/biodiesel car sales site feeds (both RSS and site scraping using Dapper.net) into a single feed using Yahoo Pipes. I would then stream that single Yahoo meta-feed into a Yahoo Widget. Using the $5K in Yahoo Marketing advertising, I would then post that widget for easy accessibility and distribution on Facebook, Twitter, NovaBiodiesel.org, Digg, Technorati and other social bookmarking tools and distribute invitations to those bookmarks and social networking sites where other biodiesel-related organizations and non-profits will be invited to to embed the widget on their sites, too, thus spreading the word.

Solution  3 Background

Solution  3 requires some background.

A very deserving and committed environmentalist I know who is also a member of the NOVA Biodiesel Cooperative has dedicated his life and evenings to the precise, formulaic meticulous measurement and mixing of biodiesel (the chemical separation of regular plant oils into harmless soap and low-emission, non-flamible and highly environmentally friendly biodiesel).

Well, in the past year, this guy has been blocked at every turn by local politicians for trying to start a business selling environmentally safe and sustainable Biodiesel to many of us here in the DC area.

The Washington DC area has a high demand for his product and this man wants to offer it at a very affordable price to the greater DC area but he's keeps running up against politicians with axes to grind.

Solution  3 -- Political Accountability

Start a petition through Yahoo Marketing, Social Actions and Pledge Bank to bring accountability to politicians who are blocking the expansion of biodiesel production in the Washington DC area.

Why Vote For This Project?

These projects would achieve the following:

1) Encourage higher use of biodiesel fuel by making diesel vehicles available as they become available through immediate notification.

2) Bring better Biodiesel availablilty to the Washington DC area through removal of political blockades to biodiesel business development.  

And if you've read this far, can you vote your opinion on this idea, too? http://www.whynot.net/ideas/5105