You might make your own biodiesel, but have you got what this 15-year-old's got?
Steven Henderson, a 15-year-old "hopeless" student who learned about climate change in school, decided to do some serious extracurricular activity: he built a large biodiesel processing system in his family's barn.
That barn is now more like a warehouse full of biofuel processing equipment , according to the BBC reporter who went to meet Henderson. The boy's biofuel powers his father's farm equipment. Henderson makes about 1,000 liters a day out of waste oil from local restaurant kitchens.
What prompted a kid to get his dad to spend about £10,000 for all the equipment - six huge tanks, pumps, etc. - to make biodiesel using the tank settling method?
"I was worried about global warming and climate change," he said. "And it saves quite a bit of money."
The family Land Rover was the first "victim" for the young man's biodiesel, and his dad was worried at first about running it in a vehicle. Now, though, the father says the engines run better on biodiesel.
Even though the waste oil is free, and the Henderson's don't sell the biofuel, they still have to pay 27.1 pence tax on each liter they make. Still, the family saves between £300-400 a week compared to buying diesel at the pump. Also, Steven pumps hot water from the barn processing facility into the house; now the family's hot water bills have dropped to nothing.
What's next? Henderson says he "would like to be a really big oil producer" (which BBC thought deserved the Dallas theme music as an underscore).
You can listen to Henderson's story on BBC 4 Radio or read it over at the The Evening Chronicle. The mostly right-wing crowd (check their signatures) over at the Free Republic sees Henderson as an example of why home schooling beats public education and a Brit who is not a "mind-numbed Socialist."
That barn is now more like a warehouse full of biofuel processing equipment , according to the BBC reporter who went to meet Henderson. The boy's biofuel powers his father's farm equipment. Henderson makes about 1,000 liters a day out of waste oil from local restaurant kitchens.
What prompted a kid to get his dad to spend about £10,000 for all the equipment - six huge tanks, pumps, etc. - to make biodiesel using the tank settling method?
"I was worried about global warming and climate change," he said. "And it saves quite a bit of money."
The family Land Rover was the first "victim" for the young man's biodiesel, and his dad was worried at first about running it in a vehicle. Now, though, the father says the engines run better on biodiesel.
Even though the waste oil is free, and the Henderson's don't sell the biofuel, they still have to pay 27.1 pence tax on each liter they make. Still, the family saves between £300-400 a week compared to buying diesel at the pump. Also, Steven pumps hot water from the barn processing facility into the house; now the family's hot water bills have dropped to nothing.
What's next? Henderson says he "would like to be a really big oil producer" (which BBC thought deserved the Dallas theme music as an underscore).
You can listen to Henderson's story on BBC 4 Radio or read it over at the The Evening Chronicle. The mostly right-wing crowd (check their signatures) over at the Free Republic sees Henderson as an example of why home schooling beats public education and a Brit who is not a "mind-numbed Socialist."
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