LOCAL BIODIESEL 2007 CONFERENCE

In which a wide range of people; from the curious, to the true believers, to the producers, gathered to share information about biodiesel.

Golden, Colorado July 13-15, 2007

 

PRESENTING...

Bob talks about "Biodiesel: Sustainable Solution or Dead End Street," his first of three presentations Friday morning after flying in from Texas.

 

A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

The crowd included people of all ages, from all walks of life and from all over the world.  Even Tom Reed, former office mate of M. K. Hubbert was there.

 

WHAT'S NEXT

We are making good use of this conference to visualize our future.  We took this photo on our way to a beer party hosted by the conference.

 

COOLBAUGH HOUSE

Our hosts rented this house for the party.  It reminded most of us of our grandmother's house.  There were cozy little rooms for chit chatting inside and a beautiful lawn for playing croquet.

 

JOHN AND JOHN

 

These two friendly guys, Jon Meuser, Environmental Science  and Engineering Graduate Student at the Colorado School of Mines and John Bush, of Boulder Biodiesel did a great job of coordinating this year's conference with Graydon Blair, of Utah Biodiesel Supply (see photo below.)

 

 

TALKING STORY

 

Everybody had at least ten stories to tell.  John made us laugh with his story about a biodiesel reactor he made from a washing machine.

 

YAK, YAK, YAK

Charlie wets his whistle while Camille carries on with the conversation.

 

IN HIS ELEMENT

Glass of stout in hand, Bob enjoys the camaraderie, jokes and good energy of the group. Teri Zeman, in the background is enjoys some ethanol.  She and Maud Essen continue to do fabulous work on homescale methanol recovery with the St. Louis Biodiesel Club.

 

A NICE SURPRISE 

John pulled out his fiddle and showed us how talented he is.

 

FOOT TAPPING GOOD

Everybody enjoyed John's impromptu concert but managed to keep themselves from breaking out into full folk dancing mode.

 

BACK TO WORK

Graydon and Bob both have the ability to accomplish a lot while making it look easy.

 

ANOTHER GREAT SPEAKER

We first heard Sam Anderson speak at a conference in Wyoming a couple of years ago.

 

FRIENDS FROM OUT EAST

 

Frankie Lind, of Pogoil and  Biodiesel Smarter, and Rachel Burton of Piedmont Biofuels entertained the crowd with their presentations.  They are both involved in exciting projects that combine agriculture, biodiesel and education.  When we first heard Frankie speak we thought, "Wow - he has got the perfect job!"  Likewise, we were very impressed when we visited Piedmont Biofuels in April.

 

MESSING AROUND IN JON'S LABORATORY

Jon looks like a kid in a candy shop when he shows off his labs.  Camille looks like, er - well, a bull in a china shop.

 

NO SHIT!

Michelle and Camille had fun messing around while the guys ogled Jon's many toys.

 

SPEAKING OF TOYS

This is Steve Fugate of Flying F Biofuels and his miniature biodiesel processor.  He hauls his rig all the way from Iowa City so that neophytes can see what a real processor looks like.

 

WOLE AND ERIC

 

Two more conference attendees, Wole hails from Nigeria and Eric a.k.a "Hefty" from Black Hawk, Colorado.  We met Wole at the Live Green in Plano Expo in May.  When Eric told me about his nickname, I commented that he wasn't very hefty looking.  "No, but I can do hefty things." he explained.

 

LOW RENT

Lorance always makes us laugh.  He lives in Denver with his beautiful wife, Debra.

 

AWWW

Michelle and Larry gave us beautiful glass Christmas ornament Larry made and then they took our photo.  Sad to say, the one photo we took of Michelle and Larry did not turn out.  Their intention was to give Bob the ornament before Christmas but that plan was thwarted by heavy snow, our traveling schedule and our move to Texas.

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