Ahmed Abdellah

Independent Research GT
17 April 2019
Ms. Curtin

Joanne Ivancic Transcribed Interview

AA
So before we get started, can you please state your name and that you consent to being recorded?

JI
Sure. My name is Joanne, Ivancic I am the Executive Director of advanced biofuels USA and I
consent to be recorded.

AA
Okay, perfect. So, starting off, we’ve spoken about my research on biofuels, and the clean energy
crisis. And I first just want to ask you that, like, as a non profit educational organization, where
do you see yourself within the next five years

JI
I.. probably doing pretty much the same thing that we're doing now. We are, we are a sort of a
subcontractor on a big proposal for USDA grant funding. And if we get to that, then we will be
doing more work on nutrient management benefits of crops, in general, and in specific with a
project that's going on at University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, with energy beats, they take up
a lot of phosphorus out of the soil. And it's a big problem there. So if they might be part of a
nutrient management program, it could be very beneficial and keeps some of the nutrients out of
the bay that are causing the dead zones and stuff like that.

AA
So you guys are looking to post those in your collection.

JI
Right right, if if we can, if if that if that grants grows-- goes through, we are one of a multitude of
people on that grant and our part of it would be right now, nutrient management plans don't
usually recognize the benefits of crop based programs, you often have to take back land out of
agriculture, again, when you grow trees or something like that on it to get to get credits and what
we're we're introducing a new concept of, of the idea that crops certain crops grown in certain
places under certain conditions can be beneficial. And and it's sort of you're looking at algae and
and it we’ve some people and in the algae who also looking at the same kind of concept, that if
you're growing algae as a crop, as a way of doing water treatment or cleaning up water in you
know, before it drains into of bigger tributary or something, then shouldn't that crop based
process be able to get recognized as a new campaign as best practices and and for nutrient
credit?tradable credits

AA
Yeah, I've spoken to some environmental scientist, and particular PhD student at Hopkins was
telling me about how does a lot of shifts to focus on wastewater management? And I'm just
interested on where you think that will lead. Not even just this community larger than this
community? Where do you think that will take us in terms of sustainability?

JI
I wish we could if we could do if we could do that.I think that I think it's, you know,project to
possibility to follow, I think that could be really important. Another student that has been talking
to who's at the University of Rhode Island, and he's writing a paper for us about biogas, about
doing anaerobic digestion, as as water treatment? And the the thing is, there's expenses to that,
and and how much benefit Are you You know, are you getting from it? And if you just look at,
like, making electricity from it, or, or, you know, making biofuels from it, then is there uh does it
pay? But, but if you look at it from the point of view of the sort of non monetizable benefits, that
you have, a way to treat the wastewater and also have another product in there certain as there is
going to always be a certain amount of, of cost to, you know, treating wastewater. So, if you if
How does the cost of doing algae or poor anaerobic digestion--how does that compare to the
other other kinds of costs? And the thing is now that they've helped us put investment into a
certain kind of a system to do your wastewater treatment.

AA
So you're kind of looking a lot of the significance of the application of it. How do you kind of
value in that?

JI
Yeah, I guess, I guess the big the big picture way would be to say, how do we look at biofuel
feedstock as solutions to other problems. And by the way, we can make fuel out of it too.

AA
Yeah, I remember you talked about the multiple uses of algae in our emails. But so when you're
talking to you, when you' were writing about how you don't believe that algae will be the end all
fits all solution? What do you believe would be the most impactful and revolutionary-- possibly
like hybrids? Or?

JI
 I think every, every community, every region, every state, every country is going to have varied
ecosystem can have a different answer to that question. I don't think that there's one best solution
for every problem. So if you're in a part of the country that really has, you know,
that has the ability to grow crops like corn, and soybeans and sugar cane or sugar beets how do
you use those most that resource and that ability most efficiently to get the most out of those
crops that you're growing? So now we don't use the corn stover. We don't use the rice straw in
some parts of the world, they even burn it? How do we mitigate the damage that's done by that?
And maybe turn that into being able to use this as something useful?

AA
So if you don't see one universal solution-

JI
There's no silver bullet

AA
Yeah. How do you see what would your case beyond the implementation of this? Like, for
example, let's say, vehicles? What do you when this make the process of vehicle
commercializing way more complicated? There are so many different types of fuels based off of
compatibility?

JI
Well, like right now, 10% of this, our ground transportation is renewable fuel. Because we're
10% ethanol right?

AA
Yeah

JI
So we've generally moved to United States, without doing a whole lot of you know, using I,
my car is a 2002 Ford Focus, we put in a little, we retrofitted it. So I can use 85 in it. Um and and
it's just a basically a little computer in there that, that you do a sort of a detour around the
computer for the part that needs to understand what's in the fuel, so that the computer on the car
now can recognize if there's high octane, um high ethanol blends of fuel in it and then it
automatically adjusts the fuel mixture and the air mixture and the the, the compression ratios to
reflect that improved fuel that's in it.

AA
So, do you know, typically, how much this costs?
JI
We were- when we were putting this in maybe three or four years ago, that was a little over
$300. Let me let me expand on that a little bit. For we're going to have, you know, basic spark
ignition engines, and compression ignition engines that need liquid fuels for many, many, many,
many years to come. Right? My car is, like I said, 2002. It's an old car, but it's knock on wood
still doing pretty good. People, these days, you buy a car today, you can expect to have it for
another 20 years, or, or somebody may be buying it used will be driving that liquid fuel car for a
long time to come. So what can we do now today tomorrow, to make the fuel that car he is going
to use-- all those liquid fuel cars? How can we make that a cleaner, better fuel, that is accessible
to everybody, as soon as possible?

AA
I see what you're saying so like you're saying that we need something that can be like because it's
not practical to say that everyone's just going to go out and buy a new car that uses like a Tesla.
But it's not every single person is going to buy a Tesla, they have a car that's working, right kind
of thing.

JI
Right. And they aren't going to be a whole lot more people are going to be able to afford one.

AA
Yeah.

JI
And they're not going to be able to you know, they can only make them so fast. You know,
there's already backlogs of people waiting for electric cars. So, you know, there's, there's, there's
there's a there's a lag in even if you went to electric cars, even if they became affordable. And
even if there was even if the the power for them was renewable, which now know in Maryland,
it's certainly isn't um eh my I've got my little energy sources thing that you get from the electric,
your electric provider. A third of our energy resources here in Frederick is coal. and natural gas
is another quarter. Nuclear is absurd. Renewable Energy, total renewable energy is about 5% and
most of that is hydro electric. So I thought if I put electric car out now, only 5% of that fuel, that
power to that car would be renewable. But I'm driving around in a an old, focused, and I can
have 85% of the car of the power in my car be renewable. Right now, I am so much cleaner than
anybody driving an ev around here.

AA
This kind of taking a little bit of a turn, But hypothetically speaking, if we could get this fuel
that you're talking about, and what do you think should be done on a social level and political
level? Like what do you think there are the major gaps in that in order to make this truly
happened?

JI
I really we have on our on our website we've got a proposal and I'm doing some refining of it but
that we've been we've been talking about since 2015 is we call it disappearing gas taxer
disappearing carbon users C. And and I think that that a car a price on carbon or carbon user fee
is is really going to be and a lot of economists agree with this is that if that will have the biggest
impact-- quickest, our proposal is that you just at the pump, so the people know what it is, you
tax the nonrenewable part of that fuel, okay, so if you've got your basic 10%, ethanol, 90%,
petroleum fuel, that 90% is going to get an extra tax on it. So that will encourage people to use
choose the fuel that has more renewable in it because it will be far cheaper. Now that will also
then encourage these, what they call it e30 optimize engines or high octane fuel, there's a lot the
automobile companies are saying like we're going to be, you know, making liquid fuel cars for a
long time. So let's make them more efficient. A way to make them more efficient is to use high
octane fuels, because then you can get much you can make lighter weight engines and they can
get much more performance out of them the thing is the best way to get the high octane fuel is
with ethanol. And 30% looks like the current optimal mixture with um with a base of gasoline.
Now, essentially, we could make that base of gasoline also renewable. But without the the
chemicals that are in that gasoline could probably become renewable. Right now, it's the problem
is you can make that stuff --but it's so expensive to make it you if it can't be sold as fuel, because
nobody's going to pay that much for it. So we know how to do it. But we are there, it's not being
made in great quantities and um and the petroleum products have such a price advantage. So we
take that price advantage away from fossil fuels and give the advantage to renewables.

AA
So that's more like how to influence the public into thinking it's worth it more to use these
renewable fuels.

JI
Right. Yes, so does the Republicans should be very happy with this, it's a very market based
approach. And, and then legislation that's been introduced on gas tax or on Atlanta, carbon tax is
that you you tax the the fuel, and then you use that money because then it's debt, of course is as
we said, it's going to make the the your your your energy costs higher, and then they have this
idea that you're going to give dividends to everybody. But to me, that doesn't make any sense,
you have to have a whole new bureaucracy, if you're just going to give it back to people who pay
taxes, or who file for taxes then you're missing a lot of the people who might be most hurt by
having to pay more for their energy. If you do it the way that we're proposing, it only is only paid
by the people who are actually using it and because these are cleaner fuels, less polluting fuels
the more renewables that are in those fuels, the better off people are and if you use that money
that you gather from that to put into research and development of finalizing the whole tool into
putting in pumps and you know the infrastructure at-- and if you prioritize those in lower income
and high pollution areas, then you're really addressing the problem you’re really addressing the
problem much more than if you just say okay, we're going to charge everybody more for all
kinds of fuel and then we're going to find try to find some way to give it back to them. That
amazes me that it's the republicans that are proposing that because it's so not market based it's
just it's like you're you this is this is right in front of your faces you know if you're if you're
talking about the the electricity to your electricity bill well you add that tax on the non um the
non non renewable parts of your electricity bill so my electricity bill now it's going to have extra
taxes on it. Yeah, because we have only 5% renewable but this is just going to make me want to
get there to be more renewables available to me where I'm buying my fuel oil and by my energy

AA
Yeah.

JI
And even if you have to split it up and say okay, will produce electricity differently but you can
certainly do your transportation fuels like this.

AA
So why do you think that people aren't speaking up about this to their congressman or woman

JI
Biofuels is still a really bad word to a lot of people. As hard as our organization works to try to
explain that the cleaner ethanol is particularly is cheaper discuss the renewable diesel is the low
sulfur diesel the the uh research done on jet fuel on is certainly that it's it's less maintenance
because it's it's a cleaner burning fuel. People don't hear that they hear things that has been you
know, the the they’ll hear oh, we're just using corn for ethanol and and it's taking food away
from people or they'll hear that that this is bad for your engines, and, people don't you know, they
don't know the science they don't know the engineering of it. And and so there you know your
your’re your’re you're going to be wary or leery of changing something if you heard that there
could be something bad about it even if you don't quite understand what that something bad
might be. And it's and so it's and and we have you know almost no money and the oil and gas
folks that don't want to lose market share have lots of money and they have lots of influence. So
the other the other thing is how California is low carbon, low carbon fuel standard, is I think, has
has a lot of good parts to it. I don't like that it it prefers electric cars by only looking at the
emissions from the tailpipe rather than looking at your life cycling emissions or your emissions
are powers are really coming from. And I'm also very concerned with electric vehicles about the
cobalt and the lithium that are needed for batteries. We just posted today an article for I can let's
see, who was it? Who was it that brought up the the idea that-- I know it was Houston Chronicle
actually it says with the rise of electric vehicles a new form energy dependence rooms because
the the metal elements that are used to make the batteries come from all the parts of the country,
other parts of the world. So we're just in one way we're just exchanging you know importing
petroleum for importing other stuff. They don't mention it in the in the article but China Chinese
interests control most of what where we get now and and the mining uses, like for the cobalt
mining in the Congo is lots of child labor and certainly not anywhere near the benefits. That even
though union coal miners in the in the US get. So you know, people people are concerned about
free trade on what coffee they drank or what clothes they buy. But they should also be concerned
about free trade on what cut what, what's in the cars, but they die, especially at when they're
looking at, you know, these big batteries for electric cars, and, and also that this article was about
was that the Energy Secretary Rick Perry has suggested that we need to do more research into
recycling those materials that are in batteries. And we really don't know how to do that. So we
haven't figured out what we're going to do with our waste problems for batteries for electric cars,
once they stop charging satisfactorily.

AA
That's really interesting, because like, if you're looking at if you're researching on electric cars,
because I've been doing some research on batteries in cars too you really-- the surface
information that you see I'm staying for electric cars aren't negative, while the surface articles
that you're reading on, biofuels are always negative. So what do you think can be done to reverse
that just time and research?

JI
More people like you asking um questions and and and digging deeper and telling their friends
and saying these things out loud. It's it is I mean, we need to be having people from the biofuels
industry talking to being invited to and talking to more environmental groups. Number I don't
know if you knew a few years ago, what are the things that really bothered me a lot was that the
Sierra Club around here had gotten like $27 million from Chesapeake Energy a big natural gas
company. biofuels folks just really can't compete with you know, some being donors to
organizations, then, you know, the the organization, Sierra Club still is a big proponent of natural
gas for, for electricity.

AA
Yeah, this correlates to something several environmental scientist was speaking to me about, it's
kind of the lack of informed persona in a lot of these environmental organizations like I've heard,
regardless of the EPA, and how it's honestly just a waiting game to wait till these smaller, I guess
biofuel groups that support through these large environmental organizations.

JI
Yeah, if you if you as you're doing this, as you have some ideas about how to improve that, those
those lines of communication, I would be very interested. You're talking to people in on on
different on different different perspectives coming from different backgrounds and looking at
this, I treat, you know, I try to do as much as I can, the organization tries. But I sometimes get
the feeling that because of what you have just said people's initial impression is negative, that
they don't want to be identified with a biofuels organization. Because even though they might
want to support the organization: educating about the benefits of biofuels, and helping people
make more rational choices about things um if somebody saw their name connected to that, they
might have a negative impression. So So that's it It multiplies itself, you know, that hindrance
sort of multiplies. So what is this paper? Are you are you are you what are you trying to do? So,

AA
I'm in a course at Howard called Independent Research. And I pick a topic where I'm completely
interested in I go in depth. So I started off with the really big research question, which is what
biofuels and how may they help change the world. And I've narrowed it down to like micro algal
biofuels and the costs and lipid extraction and my hopes are for this year, I've already done a ton
of secondary research. This is my primary research, I'm going to continue getting some sources
where I'll write a paper with refuting or supporting my hypothesis. And next year, how many
follwing with an intern mentor course so I’ll looking around for an internship.

JI
Have you talked to anybody from a company here in Maryland called Manta?

AA
Actually, a few weeks ago I was trying real hard to contact them, but I never got a call back.

JI
Okay, let me let me see if I can do uh um an introductory email for you.

AA
Okay, yeah that would be great. Something else I wonder is how do you guys utilize large scale
media to in order to really spread this out? Because I feel like if there's a possibility to get that on
your side? Like I know, like maybe this convincing one or two people with a real public image to
support your cause and be informative. And then obviously, like, let's say they're active stuff,
like having a pop up like on articles and news and stuff like that. Have you guys now have you
guys tried that and really creating a spark?

JI
Are you are you talking about something like a celebrity or you're talking about somebody like
sitting in an NPR you know?

AA
I was thinking maybe a celebrity could get the most attraction.

JI
that would be you know, the the the main main celebrities who have really stood up strong and
tall. Mike Bennett, Jackson, Jackson Browne, but he's older, but he's really a big one. The other
one was Willie Nelson. And some years ago, Willie Nelson was really into biodiesel and, and he
even bought up a truck stuff down in Texas, and they were selling all this biodiesel, they are all
these truckers. And and and the truckers were really into biodiesel. But then winter came. And
you had all these trucks that filled up in Texas who is nice and warm, and they went up to
Minnesota. And the buyer, they will have like 20% biodiesel in their fuel, and it just chilled up.
And then people were were having horrible, horrible problems when it got cold, and they use
biodiesel because they do this. It was new people didn’t really know. And, and biodiesel is not a
drop in fuel. It's not like regular diesel. And so it had all of these properties that were just
terrible, terrible, awful, horrible things happened. And it gave by it's set biodiesel or back years,
and that truck stop went bankrupt. And it would just it just completely closed down everything
that could happen. And so now we know, you don't use in cold weather that much biodiesel. And
when you do use biodiesel in the wintertime, you have to put other stabilizers in. But at the time,
that wasn't that wasn't known. So that kind of experience, i imagine soured other celebrities, into
really putting themselves behind something that is maybe new and different. Maybe that was 10
years ago, that might be eight or 10 years ago, things may have changed enough that people
shouldn't be that upset about it, or reluctant to to put their name by it. The other one is the Virgin
Atlantic guy. Um the really rich guy, what's his name, Branson. And he has, has sort of come up.
But he still is not pointed say anything that uses like energy crops. And he's still very careful to
say this is either, you know, used cooking oil, or if he's working with Lanzatech, that just did a
flight from like Miami to London last year, with the Lanzatech stuff that is, you know, they
usually use flew gas, they usually use the gases from an industrial,um like steel mills, they've
been doing work in China, taking the emissions from the steel mills, and putting them through a
biological process that can make all kinds of different um chemicals, but they've been making it
ethanol for fuel. And Virgin Atlantic got behind behind that one. But you never did you hear any
of these?
AA
You know, that's why I was asking. I was no.

JI
Yeah, so too, I think that's, that's, even though there was somebody big, like, you know, like,
Branson and Virgin Atlantic and, and there, there still is a limited audience that has heard what
they're saying. So in this industry, there is an effort to do that. Our organization hasn't. I don't
think anybody in our organization knows any, you know, has access to the inner, access to
celebrities to talk to them about this. But I, I take I think it's a it's a it would be a terrific thing. If
we could get somebody that a lot of people listen to know this, understand it, it's the other thing
with biofuels is just like we're talking you live it. It's hard to explain biofuels and the benefits of
biofuels in 10 words, or less.

AA
yeah.

JI
We have what 1520 articles? So I'll even if you know, if you got a celebrity that really, really
wanted to do it, they still have to put some time into it, where they could feel confident, saying
something and being able to answer hospital questions that would be thrown at them.

AA
So what do you think should be like the very first step that we can take now? Like, maybe more
companies to get exposure? Or, like, the political side or the public awareness?

JI
Um, I really like your idea, idea. I mean, if, what if there was a song or service, you know, what
if there was some or an app? But what would be asked to I mean, you can get apps that can tell
you where you can get a 85. But what what do you mean?

AA
Maybe if there's like an app that would maybe rewarding incentives and a bunch of easy ways to
be cleaner.

JI
There's you you know what. It's doing part of this article. Excuse me, I think, you know, we also
identified another problem. People who are doing this stuff are very hard to reach. But there's a
company called Propel in California, that is doing exactly what you're talking about. And you
probably can get enough information by going on their website, because they have, because
California has this. So this answers your question in two ways, because the policy part is
California’s got a really strong policy called the low carbon fuel standard. And so it incentivizes
people to, to make and sell, and get renewable fuels into the marketplace. Also, people in
California knows that this is a good thing and that they… before you're allowed, before you can
sell stuff in California and get the credit for it, it has to go through analysis by the state. So
people don't have to say, Is this good? Or is this not good? They know that the state has already
studied it and said, All right, if this stuff is sold here, you know, it's a it's, it's eligible for the
credits, and it's good stuff. And so Propel has, has the E85 and it has biodiesel and has renewable
diesel. And it has water pumps for high octane high ethanol blends. And it has reliable natural
gas, renewable CMG pumps they've got-they have done this, and they have the app, so that you
can follow when you when you buy stuff from their company at these at their pumps, which are
in they're mainly the main fuel retailer in California who is doing this, you can follow through
and know how much you have brought, know what kind of offset it does how much carbon is it
replacing compared to if you had a higher petroleum fuel. And and now that's all on your app,
and you can follow, follow it all along. So there is I think, what makes that app be able to work
there is there all the policy and there's that assurance that the stuff that they are selling you that
the state has said just what they're telling you about it is really true. So a lot of states are talking
this, I think 13 states that are following, trying to follow the California prop uh model. And this,
then you got Sheets, say, who then start the same kind of a thing, the same kind of an app. And
then when you went to your sheet store, and you got E15, or you've got E30 or E35, then you
know you could follow on through if if they believe that that is something that would bring
people into their their sheets, um you know, retail operations, that would make it make enough
sense for them to develop software and and you know put all of that that app technology into
their into their retail. So there's thoughts and so there's there's all these jobs for you know,
computer programmers. But I say yes, I think that that would be nice to have that as that
California model from Propel. Make it into other parts of the country--but forget Maryland.
Maryland's as far as I can tell the retail stations in Maryland that sell the E85 or or and they don't
even do Blender pumps they just do E85 pumps are near government locations where where
there are government vehicles. Because if you have a US government vehicle, and there is a E85
pump a certain distance from you, you've got to fill it up with the 85. So those it's basically w
Express pass um on whatever various names they might be. There's one that is Sheller Sunoco or
something like that in there's there's two places in Annapolis. We understand that royal farms are
supposed to be putting these pumps in but I haven't seen them.
AA
Yeah.

JI
 So but that's where the main places are in Maryland just because they are near a market where
people know that where they know where they know that they'll have some customers coming in
to buy the stuff.

AA
So basically through all this, we just need state support to push through and guide initiatives?

JI
We absolutely need state support. The states have got to um they've got to be on board and
enthusiastic. And I just saw from Maryland energy MC Maryland center MCEC, Maryland
something Energy Center I can't remember but MCEC just put out a list of Maryland state
legislation that has to do with energy, renewable energy stuff. And and the there's one that's
about you know, incentivizing ev’s but it does not have it doesn't seem to have any provision in
there that would also incentivize vehicles that use renewables like you know, like flex fuel
vehicles or vehicles that use E85. So there there's this feels like they don't pay any attention to
them at all. And the state and and even with this promotion I said I heard that that royal farms
was going to do it. Other states there's a there's a there's a program from USDA called the BIP
biofuel infrastructure program I think and other states have applied to USDA on their own as a
state to get the it's a it's like a matching grant kind of a program you can get to help fuel retailers
add pumpa that can that can sell biodiesel or higher ethanol blends. And Maryland and Virginia
went together. Maryland couldn't even get its act together to apply for these on its own. There's a
I think the reason that Maryland and Virginia went together because there's a consultant who is
located in Virginia and she was working with Virginia and she was working with Maryland and
and must have said we will do the work just you know, you can you know just get on board but I
don't miss out on this. For some reason Maryland and Virginia went together it's the strangest
strangest thing you know Minnesota went up by themselves feel Iowa went by themselves
California and all by themselves but nope it's just there's there's there's there's a racetrack gas you
can you can do race track going and from here to Florida and about whenever you need to staff
to do a refill there's going to be a racetrack gas or or something else up there something else
along I-95 so that you can keep refilling with at with E85 all the way down to Florida. So let's
get into the head of the secure somewhere. Yeah, so there's there's there's sheets is good they
have a lot of E15 and have uh some E85. But Pennsylvania because Pennsylvania because
Pennsylvania supported more. Yeah, so yes, so we need policy, we need policy on the federal
level on the state level, we need policy and the municipal level of of community saying we want
to have fuel choices in our community, please, when you are putting your new tanks in when you
are refurbishing, please put in high ethanol blends, please put in you know start selling
renewable diesel fleets. renewables diesel, there's not that much of it yet made. So basically what
the transition for that is to go through fleets. So you know, New York City Baltimore should be
doing this fleet should be using renewable diesel. You know, all of this stuff, all of their diesel
engines could be using renewable diesel.

AA
So how do you think someone lika high school students could get into contact with the people
making these choices and these governmental positions to portray our views?

JI
Well, if you go to the any climate marches, or if you go to the science march, carry a sign that
says something good about biofuels, carry a sign that says I want a choice I want you know,
more renewables at the gas pump. Get that, you know, make that visible, make it make it happen
like you doing, doing articles, or collect what would put gets a lot of attention and gets people to
collect, collect used cooking oil. Make sure that all the schools in your school district are
recycling, they're cooking well. And there's as aggregators that will come around and collect it,
and it will go to either making biodiesel, or it might be going to animal feed. But it will be but it
should not just be dumped. It should be recycled. And that is definitely something that students
can do in their own backyard. And they could you know, talk to your to your city, your towns.
Do you have diesel engines, equipment? You know, a lot of times it's it's the equipment or trucks
and stuff like that. Transition to renewable diesel. Everybody talks about transitioning into
electric cars, no you don’t have to wait for electric cars? Do a survey--can their vehicles use or
their flex fuel vehicles, could they use the E85? And have a city policy that says they will use the
85. You know, if the pump is within the city limits or within you know, three or four miles of the
city limits. And then if there isn’t any, get somebody to offer that choice. That may take you
know, it may take a year or two before that happens. But you gotta start somewhere. And I think
that will then that will then roll over to your state representatives telling your state representative
so we want to have a choice of renewable fuels in our vehicles wherever we are in our buses. I
know we've got a bunch of electric buses up here and and there's compressed natural gas buses,
well then say if there's compressed natural gas process then have them use renewable
compressed natural gas. What about this, there used to be a funding is a lot of school buses
around the country for a while we're using beach money, because there was some kind of a
funding mechanism, some grant program or something. But I think that grant program probably
stopped having money and then they went back to using regular diesel. So that would be the
other thing is if you can't do it right away, then a good project for students would be working
with the state regional community, municipal, town governments to say, Okay, let's do a plan.
Let's do a real plan. What What is it going to take for this town to be renewable and not just
energy. You know towns say they’re calling 100% renewable by 2030. And they're just talking
about electricity. They're not talking about their transportation fuel. And so let's say what is a
realistic goal for 2030 for our town to be not polluting? And it's not just you know, it's not just
climate change is not just carbon because you're splitting carbon see, it's not decarbonisation
that's the fossilization is a better word. And so go what would it take to go renewable cleaner fuel
and and and and then also your student project could be what is the what is the savings if you
were putting E85 into a vehicle that has the difference of price not that w expresses is charging
because w Express is uh they are here they charge like five five cents less than regular so it's not
a it's not a big deal but if you go on to E85prices.com and see what difference is in other parts of
the country and what the end or grind to the US Department of Energy chart for they have daily
prices and they have monthly average prices you know it's like $1 less to get E85 a lot of times
it's 60 cents 70 cents, sometimes even $1 less so student could do an analysis of how much fuel
does a town use and if they had flex fuel vehicles how much could they save on on fuel? I think
students can do a lot by informing themselves doing doing studies and forming their
communities by doing projects like this that that really have a practical application and and um
taking action like like working to get their their schools recycling their their used cooking oil and
making--probably I I imagine all restaurants now recycle their cooking well

AA
Yeah pretty much.

JI
But I my impression is that school schools might not be doing it. And then the other is you know
getting pledges from schools,towns, fleet, businesses that have fleets, you know what if
everybody at Jessup all of those vehicles going in and out of just out at the at that food transfer
facility. What if they were all using renewable fuel? What if there was a station there where they
where they were buying renewable fuel that would be a huge impact.

AA
So it's kind of just take these smaller steps in our community first.

JI
Yeah, think of those as learning it learning the process learning the language learning how to do
the calculations learning where the information is and then once you do that, then you've got a
template for taking it further

AA
Well, thank you so much this conversation has been great.

JI
I'm glad. I will I will do a introductory email to the people I know it Manta and and and tell them
that we are have been talking about this that you are not only working on the paper but you're
looking- Are you looking for an internship for the summer?
AA
The course only requires that for next school year.

JI
The thing is they have maybe maybe they need some I don't know if you're driving or not but
very their test facility is here near near Thurmont Maryland and I don't know if they need if they
need any any help on on that at all then they might they're still small they're still pulling
everything together and I don't know that they have any money but but they might and they
could be along a little further along another there I understand they're thinking of expanding into
other states too but but I've heard that they're still going to do they're they're still going to do
some testing here in in Maryland in the summer so they in wintertime they have outdoor you
know algae product so the wintertime is everything's dead Yeah, I'll do is I'll do that and I really
would like to see what you have when you're done with this. Okay, and and and consider that in
and then you know maybe consider some version of it being able to be published on our website.

AA
Yeah that would be great.

JI
Okay, well keep me up to date on on how things are going. And just and I mean there's there's
always the possibility of interning with us over the next school year but we we have no money
we cannot pay

AA
For the course the internships are unpaid.

JI
Ok. And then if you if there's something else that comes up and and you want to talk about that
and think about that a little bit more than we will look at more formally making you a volunteer
and finding some exciting projects for you to work on.

AA
Okay, so I'll keep in touch with you And yeah, thank you so much.

JI
You're welcome. It was a pleasure to talk with you. I'm really glad that you picked this as a topic
AA
It was a pleasure talking to you and you really cleared some things up for me.

JI
Good, good but here if you have any questions give me a call you know, if you want to check
back on something, give me a call. I'm going to be out of town all next week, but I'll have my
cell phone number on the on the answering machine.

AA
Alright, I’ll be sure to do so.

JJ
Good luck.

AA
Thank you.

JI
Bye bye.

I conducted an interview with the executive director of Advanced Biofuels USA. Her name is
Joanne Ivancic and she has written many articles on the development of clean energy and
strategies to boost awareness. She provided essential knowledge of the efforts and education
surrounding climate change. Typically, groups tend to focus on investing in younger generations
to find renewable energy sources. A energy source must be cost efficient and be easily
incorporated. She highlights the importance of the awareness issue and how many groups are
working to solve it. The interview went very well, it flowed like a discussion and the
conversation stayed on topic the whole time. It allowed greater sense of confidence when
speaking with professionals and it lasted a great amount of time. There was some trouble
sometimes to get Ms. Ivancic to understand exactly what the questions were asking, but overall,
it went fantastic and helped develop my communication skills.