The Dans from Otherpower.com got a booth at the Fair this year -- our first time trying more than just attending a Renewable Energy event. We also gave a one-hour presentation on 'the basics of wind power' on Saturday. We had a GREAT time and met an incredible variety of folks with differing interests.
The 2003 Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Fair, Fort Collins, CO Sept. 13-14, 2003, was presented by the Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Association, a local non-profit organization:
RMSLA
9860 Poudre Canyon Rd
Bellvue, CO 80512
(970)-224-FAIR
http://sustainablelivingassociation.org/
We haven't heard the official attendance figures yet, but the Fair was packed with attendees and exhibitors. We thought the Fair was extremely well-organized! And we apologize in advance to the exhibitors that we didn't get to talk to or take pictures of. We were just too busy the whole weekend to include everybody on this webpage.
Everything was in place when we arrived Saturday morning, with our table and tent already set up, and our spot on the 2 closed streets clearly marked. 120VAC power was available from large, high-tech and very quiet diesel generators mounted on trailers. The gensets ran on Biodiesel from one of the Exhibitors. Guest speakers made presentations continuously during both days, in 2 separate tents. Woody Harrelson, Julia Butterfly Hill, and Johnette Napolitano made guest appearances as part of the We The Planet Tour. There was a playground for kids, a beer garden with local microbrews at only $2.50 a pint. No disposable plastic cups; you got a beer glass with your first pint, and brought it back for refills. All trash possible was recycled, with bins for plastic, glass, aluminum, paper and food scraps for the worms...the actual 'garbage' can was the smallest one! Some great bands played all afternoon both days. We thought the whole weekend was a great time!
Larry the Wind Turbine was our centerpiece -- that's DanB explaining the finer points. Larry wanted to take off and make power all day, we had 5-10mph breezes all day. We had to shut him down (Larry, that is....) by shorting the phases so he wouldn't remove anyones head!
For next year we're considering a trailer will telescoping tower so people can see (and more importantly HEAR) a wind turbine. We got lots of questions on how much noise wind turbines make. Our visitors ranged from people who had never seen a wind turbine before and were amazed they could be built at home, to wind power enthusiasts who grilled us about every detail of the construction. Tons of fun! Both Dans nearly lost their voices from yakking so much both days. A few cool pints of Fat Tire from Fort Collin's New Belgium Brewery helped this problem.
Our homebrewed Permanent Magnet Alternator Display was a hit with kids. We wish we'd hooked a watt/hour meter to it for the duration of the Fair....Kid Energy seems to be an unlimited free source!
Our 'magnetic clay' display was a hit too. There's a huge Neodymium magnet at the bottom of all those BBs, but as you get closer to the magnet the BBs get harder to move. Amazing sculptures are possible, and it's a great demonstration of temporary magnetism.
Victor from AeroFire Windpower was an exhibitor. He had a Bergey and a Whisper at the Fair. He sells, installs, and services wind turbines, and is based in Lafayette, CO. He built a monster homebrew mill, and the Dans can't wait to go down and see it. A very friendly and knowledgeable fellow!
One of our next-door-neighbors at the Fair was some friendlySierra Club volunteers, whose mission was to educate the public about compact fluorescent (CF) lightbulbs.
They had a cool display with power meters, lights, and a big chunk of coal. We borrowed some watts from them to charge our digital camera batteries. The gentleman running the booth was thinking about setting up a marshmallow-roasting station for the kids, using an incandescent bulb! Incandescent lights really are just space heaters that make a little light as a byproduct. DanF chuckled when they asked him 'how many of the lightbulbs at your home are CFs?' He was able to answer 90% -- every single one except the outdoor lights, since we have trouble up here with CF's performing when it's below zero outside. Over the course of 2 days, these volunteers educated hundreds of folks about the cost savings and environmental benefits of using CF bulbs. Hats off to them!
Biodiesel and Straight Vegetable Oil (SVO) vehicles were a really interesting part of the Fair. Blue Sun Biodiesel Had a display, with fuel and some biodiesel-powered cars. All of the AC generators powering the Fair ran on biodiesel too.
Vehicles need no modification to run on biodiesel instead of fossil diesel. With older vehicles, you have to watch for leaking gaskets and hoses for a while because some seals were made of natural rubber, which is degraded by the methanol in biodiesel. New gaskets/hoses are cheap and easy to install. Newer diesel vehicles already have seals made of modern materials, they need nothing at all to burn pure biodiesel (B100)! The company just opened biodiesel pumps at a gas station in Boulder; you can get 100% biodiesel or 80/20% mix. Woody Harrelson was present at the dedication of the pumps in Boulder, and he gave a presentation at the Fair.
Brock and Damon from Free Fuel Systems of Fort Collins were there with their bus that runs on straight vegetable oil (SVO). We also know Damon from some excellent pickin' parties up on the mountain! DanF is now on the lookout for an old VW Rabbit Diesel to convert to SVO. Free Fuel Systems offers SVO conversion kits, installation and technical support.
Damon filled us in about how SVO vehicles work. You have dashboard switch that controls whether you feed SVO to the engine or biodiesel. You start the engine on diesel, and run it for about 5 minutes on that. Then, the SVO preheater has warmed the oil enough that you switch over the SVO tank. You switch back to biodiesel 5 minutes before turning the engine off--otherwise the stickier vegetable oil can gum things up. The conversion process of SVO to biodiesel uses lye and methanol to separate the more viscous glycerine from the SVO. This preheater and switch arrangement from Free Fuel Systems allows you to skip the fuel conversion and burn straight oil. All these guys have to do is back up to a greasetrap behind a restaurant and ask permission from the owner to clear out their greasetrap for free. It's always granted! They use a handcrank pump and vinyl tubing to suck out the grease into a barrel, and then take the barrel home and pump the oil thru a filter. It's then ready to use! These guys are both experts at this -- they can stick a stick into a greasetrap and tell right away if the oil is suitable for fuel. Grease with lots of animal fat is problematic, vegetable grease is what you want. They recommend Chinese restaurants and Mom n' Pop diners as the source for high-quality waste vegetable oil.
John Anderson of GarbageBusters was there with his Wormbulance! He's well known in N Colorado as the Worm Man, and had his full range of cool stuff there. He educates customers about the benefits of composting and worms, is very knowledgable about Vermiculture, and has a bunch of cool gadgets that make having worms eat your garbage simple and fun. He also sells worms.
The big boxes in front are insulated worm habitats, designed so your worms can live thru the coldest winter. John donated one to the silent auction. Both the big screen thing mounted on an ambulance gurney and the 5-gallon bucket screen thing are worm separators -- they quickly separate your worms from the castings. The black stacking trays in the lower right of the photo are composting bins. Each tray has a perforated bottom, and the worms crawl up into the garbage in the next higher tray as they consume the garbage in the lower ones and turn them into castings (castings=worm poop, an excellent fertilizer and soil conditioner). If you have a 'soil emergency' with parched, cracked and dry soil and struggling plants, the Wormbulance can help -- but I don't think the local police let him run code 3 with lights and siren to get to your house.....
Alex Sullivan from BeeCharmer Honey was there with freshly-harvested honey from his bees. He made a presentation about beekeeping and showed how it's done and all of the tools needed. He's 12 years old and gave an extremely professional and engaging presentation to a bunch of very interested folks.
As Sunday wore on, some local honeybees were delighted at all the honey they could scavenge from Alex's comb frames from his demonstration, and came by the booth to tank up on free food in preparation for winter. The local bees caused no problems, and were friendly and non-aggressive just like Alex described in his presentation. He's an extremely dedicated young man -- look him up if you need some honey or want to get started in beekeeping!
One participant brought a Pedal-Electric Rhoades Car to show off at the Fair. He says he can get a 20-mile range without pedalling at all. The electric side of the car runs on 3 12vdc SLA batteries, salvaged from electric wheelchairs.
Ridgway High School brought their PV-powered solar car to the Fair. It was GREAT to see it moving silently up and down the street, driven by students and powered by a roof of solar panels. They compete in solar car competitions nationwide, and one of their student team members won a Scholarship from Dell Computers this year for his work on the project.
There were lots of kids at the Fair, and the organizers provided all kinds of fun things for them to do!
The stage was set up with an excellent sound system, and there were bands playing all afternoon, both days. The stage was in the beer garden, and it was a great place for the adults to relax, down some pints of GREAT beer, and listen to the bands.
Shown in the picture is local musician Scott Allen playing with Ralph Rivera and other friends. The beer garden organizer's idea of NOT using disposable plastic cups worked out great! There was an intimidating-looking fellow there checking IDs, and when it was proven you were 21 you got your hand stamped. You purchased wooden tokens to buy beer, and got a glass pint mug with your first beer--you just had to rinse it out and bring it back for refills. We heard that the Fair would even buy back your mug if you didn't want to keep it! We thought it was a great solution to the eco-nightmare and litter problems with disposable plastic beer cups. And having the shady, relaxing beer garden with bands was a great way to cool off that sore throat from yakking with Fair-goers all day.
There was a homebrewed beer display and demonstration in the beer garden, too, presented by Scott Christoffel, Head Brewer for the Left Hand Brewery. DanF is a homebrewer and ex-technical editor of Zymurgy Magazine, the homebrewed beer magazine -- so he was happy to see the display and smell the incredibly good aroma of beer brewing!
After the Dans gave their presentation on the Basics of Wind Power on Saturday, we packed everything up and headed down to Boulder's beautiful and historic Chatauqua Auditorium to see our local favorite bluegrass band Open Road open the show for Dr. Ralph Stanley, one of the fathers of bluegrass music.
Dr. Stanley has been touring for....58 years. Incredible! We were honored to be able to catch him live with the Clinch Mountain Boys. You might recognize Dr. Stanley from his appearances in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou. And Open Road did an incredible job with their opening set, playing mostly original songs. It was a great night for us! We arrived back in Ft Collins at midnight, in time to pound back some Guinness and Maker's Mark at Avogadro's Number, right across the street from the Forcefield Store where we crashed for the night, and got ready to do it all again at the Fair Sunday morning!
Fort Collins' local homegrown community radio station KRFC 88.9 FM has a big presence at the Fair too. The folks at Forcefield listen to this station all the time while we work. They support local artists in a big way, with LIVE music on the air every weekday at 12:30PM. If you are in the Northern Front Range area, give KRFC a listen!
Our other next-door-neighbor at the Fair was the Fuel Cell Store, selling educational fuel cell demonstration kits to fairgoers. They donated a complete fuel cell education kit to the silent auction. If you are interested in Hydrogen technology, check out their website--they offer a big line of products, and lots of educational resources for teachers.
The folks from Tri-State Hydroponics were just down the row from us at the Fair. They offer all kinds of great indoor gardening products that help in producing good crops in difficult environments....us folks at Otherpower.com live at 8200 feet, and any kind of gardening is a challenge at this altitude.
The folks from Earthsense had a very impressive, modular and easy-to-setup display at the Fair. They sell renewable energy educational display kits, and their RE display trailer was beautiful. It had solar panels, a solar cooker, an AIR 403 wind turbine on a telescoping mast, inverters, plug-ins, batteries, metering equipment, and more, all in a fold-out trailer. Really slick, and a very popular exhibit.
They also had a roll-out Hydrogen electrolyzer and fuel cell display at their booth. It was a sunny weekend, and it bubbled along merrily the entire time.
The Northern Colorado Renewable Energy Society was at the Fair, and we talked with these nice folks quite a bit. We plan to get involved with NCRES in the near future. They offer lots of educational materials, bus tours of renewable energy installations across the northern Front Range, local chapters, conferences, meetings, lectures, and more. Great stuff!
The folks from a local Fort Collins RE equipment dealer Burnham-Beck and Sun were there, but we didn't get a picture. A strong magnet fell into DanF's briefcase from our display table and wiped out part of a floppy.... Anyway, we get lots of email requests for information about local dealers, and these folks were friendly and knowledgable locals. Now we know where to send people! We're 'out of the loop' on local dealers since we do everything ourselves up here.
The folks from Waste Not Recycling in Pierce, CO had an informative display containing samples of products made from recycled materials -- a huge variety of plastic Deck planks, steel cookware, paper products, and even art made from old circuit boards! They service homes, government agencies and businesses around the N Colo front range....customers include cities, counties, Kodak, Poudre Valley Hospital, and more.
The Fair would not have a very good place to hold a Republican Party fundraiser or Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign rally! Some selected commentary:
