Laura Goldhamer ’06 has her own bus and she’s going places with it. She was recently conferred the “Youth Hero” award by Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman for her work in converting a short bus that runs on diesel to run on waste vegetable oil.
“I commend Ms. Goldhamer for her innovation,” Lieberman said. “Not only is she part of an environmental solution to this country’s fuel and environmental crises, but she is using this project in other community-serving endeavors.”
Every two months, Lieberman awards a new person the title of Connecticut Youth Hero. The award recognizes Connecticut’s finest students and their achievements.
It is probable that the grant will not be awarded by the time Goldhamer graduates this summer, but she hopes to find other sources of funding that will allow her to remain in Middletown to carry out similar sorts of work.
Goldhamer’s interest was piqued during her freshman year when she first heard about the use of waste vegetable oil as fuel in diesel engines.
“I learned it at a time when I felt particularly frustrated with the direction of US politics with respect to international affairs and the environment, and my role as a citizen within that country,” Goldhamer said.
The vehicle conversion involves adding a second tank to a diesel engine to hold the vegetable oil and then running coolant lines to a heat exchanger within the vegetable oil tank. The upshot of this, according to Goldhamer, is that the vehicle begins by running on petro-diesel fuel and switches to vegetable oil for the majority of the trip. This is done with no loss of power or gas mileage and with diminished pollutants. Before the trip ends, the driver switches back to the first fuel tank in order to flush the warm vegetable oil from the system before the engine is shut off and starts to cool.
Learning as she went, Goldhamer carried out the vegetable oil conversion last spring with Leah Frost ’05, Sam Merritt from Oberlin College and Ian Warren from Hampshire College.
To obtain the oil she needed, Goldhamer visited restaurant managers and told them she was collecting waste vegetable oil for an alternative fuel project.
Goldhamer explained that since restaurants usually have to pay for a company to clear away their waste oil, they are sometimes open to having it done for free or even at a discounted price; she currently does it for free. After visiting several restaurants and diners, Goldhamer approached Typhoon and its popular manager, Ta-Ta.
“Ta-Ta was open, enthusiastic and helpful,” Goldhamer said. “Plus the food there is delicious.”
Her project initially encountered obstacles, including the inherent mechanical difficulties of driving a retired diesel short bus. According to Goldhamer, she had trouble getting her time-consuming project to count as independent coursework with either the Biology, Chemistry or Earth & Environmental Science Departments.
“I [did] meet with some institutionalized resistance from the University,” Goldhamer said.
The University also declined her suggestions for adopting alternative fuel projects on campus, such as processing campus-dining vegetable oil into biodiesel.
“I truly thank the people who have been encouraging and helpful,” Goldhamer said. “I also have some qualms with the ways in which this sort of timely, pertinent and pragmatic educational project has been in some ways hindered from development.”
Future plans for her bus include turning it into a traveling farm stand to distribute local organic produce like that grown at Long Lane Farm. Goldhamer’s bus has been included by the Middletown Hunger Task Force Coalition in their application for a federal grant from the Department of Agriculture for community food projects.
“The bus would operate in and around Middletown, serving both as a food-distributional tool, accepting food stamps and cash, as well as a mobile education center, traveling to local elementary and high schools to speak about the environmentally minded community projects with which it is associated,” the grant proposal states.
“I feel that a number of students choosing to remain in Middletown in the summer or after graduation could offer a lot of continuity to student projects in the area that take longer to complete or establish than one’s undergraduate career of four academic years,” Goldhamer said. “Perhaps there will be some kind of concert fundraisers out at the farm at points this spring to raise money to fund summertime intern positions to keep the ball rolling year round.”
More information about Goldhamer’s award is available at http://liberman.senate.gov/explore/youthheroes.
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