Press Room

Biodiesel backers spreading message
Boulder, CU groups help construct plant in Colombia

By Kate Larsen, Camera Staff Writer
May 17, 2004

Boulder's biodiesel community is taking its message
all the way to South America.
Six locals from Boulder Biodiesel and CU Biodiesel
recently spent three weeks in Bogota, Colombia,
helping build a plant to produce clean-burning fuel.
"We all feel very strongly about biodiesel," said
Evan Belser, a member of CU Biodiesel. "It can be a
great alternative for a country ó a really troubled
country."
Belser and the group made the trip after meeting
Paolo Lugari, a Colombian who was in Boulder last year for
the Sustainable Resources Conference. A dialogue
started and culminated this month when the Boulder
group traveled south.
In a country where petroleum-based fuel dominates,
Belser said the plant is a momentous step toward
achieving sustainability.
The plant and processor were built in less than a
month and can produce 400,000 gallons of biodiesel
fuel a year. The fuel is made from waste grease from
local restaurants as well as locally grown palm oil.

All of the fuel will be shipped to Gaviotas, a
30-year-old sustainable community in a remote part
of eastern Columbia. The community has used diesel fuel
to power its farm equipment and vehicles because no
other alternatives were available, Belser said.
Getting other communities to use the alternative
fuel will be more of a challenge, he added.
"It's going to be tough," Belser said. "Petroleum
diesel is heavily subsidized by the government and
the prices are affordable."
For Melanie Zauscher, a research assistant at CU,
the trip was a homecoming. Zauscher was raised in
Colombia. She was excited to return and use her
chemistry skills on the project.
"It was great," she said. "A lot of the people there
only finished school through the fourth grade, yet
were able to understand all of the chemistry."
Belser said the group has plans to return to
Colombia next year and hopes to involve the CU Environmental
Center.

Contact Camera Staff Writer Kate Larsen at (303)
473-1361 or larsenk@dailycamera.com.