Wesleyan student unveils car that runs on alternative fuel

At an environmental forum Wednesday, a Wesleyan student answered a city initiative with her own clean energy invention: a car that runs on vegetable oil.

Mayor Domenique Thornton and Councilman Ron Klattenberg announced Wednesday that the city’s energy task force will hoist a solar panel on the existing Middletown High School roof. The photovoltaic unit, a gift of the Connecticut Clean Energy Options in reward for local residents who chose a clean energy option on their energy bill, will be mounted on the high school by late November, said Klattenberg.

He hopes solar energy will help the city deal with an inevitable increase in its $1.57 million of energy costs as fuel prices soar. The mayor praised educational aspects. "It will be an opportunity to teach environmental education to our children," she said.

At a Connecticut League of Conservation Voters forum at the Davenport Center at Wesleyan University, senior Laura Goldhamer got the chance to educate others about an initiative of her own.

The Denver native has hand-crafted an engine that turns used cooking oil into effective transportation. She gets the vegetable oil from Typhoon restaurant on Main Street, where friendly staff collect a supply for her after a week’s worth of noodles and egg rolls pass through. She pours it into a 65-gallon tank in her vehicle -- a 15-passenger short bus.

Goldhamer said the car still needs a bit of diesel fuel -- enough to run the engine until the vegetable oil is hot enough to move smoothly through tubes and be used as fuel. It only takes about five minutes of diesel usage, she said, until the van is up and running.

But Goldhamer says her work has only begun. "I’m trying to start a bio-diesel co-op for other people who have diesel cars," said Goldham. She said she already has a processor that turns used cooking oil into bio-diesel, a fuel source that can be used in any regular diesel engine. The processor is bike-powered, she said.

Goldham forsees a future with a network of Middletown restaurants all donating used vegetable grease, and a co-op who would collectively process the oil.

Local activist George Frick, who helped her build the huge fuel tank for her van, sees a future for the van as a vessel for social initiatives. "It’s the answer," he said, not only to cut down on greenhouse gas emission but to provide services to underprivileged youth.

Frick, who is involved in several local initiatives, including helping teenagers build a skate park in town, hopes he and Goldham can turn the cooking-oil-powered van into a youth services bus. He wants to use it to take underprivileged kids canoeing on the river. Frick and Goldham mingled with a crowd of about 40 politicians, activists, and students. "We have to create a community," said Frick, "to replace the one we have problems with."

Laura Goldhamer hopes to get the collective going by the end of this school year, and invites interested parties to email her at lgoldhamer@wesleyan.edu.



©The Middletown Press 2005