Biodiesel Conversion

Natalie Fleming, a freshman at Arizona State University, attends the only existing Global Institute of Sustainability.  Her passion for sustainability began in high school, only to erupt at ASU. Currently, she is collaborating with students, faculty, and the company AZ Biodiesel in order to convert university vehicles to run on biodiesel. Eventually, she hopes to also acquire a system to convert used oil from campus into biodiesel on site. Attending a university with about 68,000 students, she is able to identify urban development problems, and aims to find equitable solutions.

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April 07, 2009

Over the last month, there have been many triumphs and setbacks in the ASU biodiesel project. My team’s relationship with AZ Biodiesel is strengthening, as we collaborate to write a proposal to university stakeholders. Right now, we are at the stage of gathering important data to help persuade the administrators, especially financially. This data includes current cost of waste oil disposal, as well as exact cost of diesel purchase for two university recycling trucks. Another area of the project that we are currently concentrating on is legal logistics. We are in correspondence with the Arizona Department of Transportation, the City of Tempe, and Environmental Health and Safety. Unfortunately the communication is slow with these contacts because the departments are so large. I have been researching biodiesel projects at other schools, and trying to contact the project leaders in order to gain insight on roadblocks others have experienced to attempt to avoid them. Otherwise, we are looking forward to a visit from Sustainable Endowments Institute in a few weeks to kick off Earth Week!

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