The truth of the matter is that in the world of fossil fuels, we don’t know what we’re dealing with.  As the vast majority of the worldwide scientific community tells us, we lack real consciousness about the long term effects of burning fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions, and global climate change.  Visit www.350.org for more information on this subject, and to get involved in the global day for climate action.

On another level though, we simply don’t know our fuel – that oily liquid that we pump into our vehicles day in and day out.  If we did know, on a down and dirty, personal basis, we would have infinitely greater respect for it and our use of it.  Instead, we disassociate from our fuel, keeping it hidden away in closed containers.  We pump it into hidden tanks underneath our car, tanks we never even see unless we do mechanic work.  Interestingly enough, this relationship we have developed with our fuel is quite similar to the relationship we have built with our food.  Most of our food is grown, processed, and distributed away from our eyes and hands.  We don’t wish to deal with the dirtier aspects of blood and byproducts.  We would rather keep that stuff at a distance.  As a result, our respect for our food reflects the same respect we have for our fuel.  If our society truly knew its food and its fuel, we can’t imagine that it would look the same as it does today.

Touring with the Nourish(meant) bus, we have come to intimately know our fuel.  It’s gross, it’s always weighing down the bus, it gets everywhere, and it gets US everywhere.  We have developed a love-hate relationship with it.  On the one hand, the oil we use is not directly connected to so much of the terrible exploitation and conflict in the world (e.g. Nigeria and US-Middle East relations).  It makes us significantly more self-reliant than most combustion-engine users.  It has saved us hundreds of dollars on this trip.  Most importantly though, it has connected us with amazing people and inspired beautiful conversations.

On the other hand, we just don’t like the oil.  It gets onto everything, from our clothes to our faces to our bikes.  It is sticky and hard to get off.  It smells bad.  It’s a ton of work to filter and pump.  Thinking about it though, we have realized that diesel and gas are even more disgusting to deal with, and there’s something great in the fact that we know our oil, while we are dissociated from the diesel we consume.

A particular point to relate is the work that goes into finding and processing oil.  It’s immense.  First we have to call around to find restaurants that are interested in donating (this is where established relationships in a community make working with veggie oil WAY easier).  Then we have to make sure the oil is suitable.  Some of the stuff we have encountered is positively foul- chunks of lard, maggots, and a distinct smell of vomit top the list.  Then we must pump it into our containers.  Then we dewater it, which can take several days if it’s humid.  Then we have to pump it into a sock filter to get the particulate matter out.  Then we have to pump it up to two more times.  Either directly into a tank, or back into a storage tank to be pumped to the tank at a later time.  Every time we do this, we have to suit up in our oil clothes, get oil all over ourselves, and expend the energy to hand pump the oil.
(It is important to note that filtering oil while working from a home base can be made exponentially simpler by using the settling method for filtration.  You can find tons of information about it online.)

All of this work, in addition to the many hours we have spent in direct contact with our fuel has made us deeply aware of the energy and value stored in our fuel.  What our fuel does for us – move us at incredible speeds across the landscape – is truly amazing.  The amount of energy stored in our oil is incredible.  Then, when we think even deeper and more connected, we think about the plants that all worked to produce the oil that we use.  From Ohio through Michigan to Wisconsin, we have seen fields upon fields of corn and soy- their green leaves waving at us, reminding us of where our fuel comes from.  We are talking millions of plants.  Millions.  How many billions of seeds – each a potential plant – pressed into oil?  We use plants in untold numbers whose sole purpose in life has been processed down to first, cooking food for someone, and second, providing us with fuel.  It humbles us.  It engenders deep and abiding respect.  It makes us want to drive less, to bike more, to use our bodies, our own energy more often.  The close relationship we have with our fuel, in all its ugly magic, forces us to respect it.  This is beautiful.

These thoughts we have had about fuel are thoughts we easily extend to food.  They make us think about the relationships between things, about energy and where it comes from in its many sources.  They make us think about community.  From them we have developed one of the principles of Nourish(meant): By entering into relationship with our “resources,” they stop being resources and become members of our community, demanding the respect and awareness they deserve.

One Response to “The Challenges of Being Your Own Fuel Supplier”

1. lindsey says:

   11 August 2009 at 1:10 pm

   wow.

   this is amazing. i learn from you all more and more as i know you. the sentence at the end? you have to make that part of your email signature now. i’m putting it on my facebook. it’s so true, so simple yet so complex, and so multifaceted from water to fuel to food to animals to anything.

   love you two!