Spring Break
Fast food fuels 'Greasy Rider' on book tour Author fills up tank with fry oil and hits the road
By: Marianna Nash
Issue date: 10/23/08 Section: Books
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What he emphasized throughout the reading (and in asides to the small but attentive crowd at Odyssey Bookshop) was that anyone can be ambitious in their efforts to protect the environment.
“I think the most important contributions that anyone can make, even more than driving a grease-powered car or screwing in a fluorescent light bulb, is to get involved politically, to organize,” said Melville.
“Some of the most effective organizations that do just that are on campus. Without change from the top, politically, we’re not going to achieve the change we need as far as the environment goes, and any way change is going to come from the top is if we force it by political activism.”
When asked if he had been a political activist in college, he said all he did was read newspapers. His inistence that he and Iggy were merely “two dudes” with an awareness of the transportational possibilities of peanut oil was a point he made in his book as well.
“I’m by no means a scientist but I did a lot of research and [tried] to put renewable energy in a historical context.”
The audience laughed with him as he described how the idea for a “veggie car” came to him—an idea that many other “greaseheads” across the country have tried with varying degrees of success.
His wife, a reader of green magazines and a scrupulously careful monitor of her own carbon footprint, encouraged him to buy and convert a used diesel rather than a pickup truck—which he admits, in a studied dude-like tone, he would have done had she not pointed out how angry the veggie car would make Dick Cheney.
According to Melville, a typical diesel conversion kit can be $1000—a little steep for a college student’s budget. As with many environmental initiatives, anyone can do conversion on a diesel engine. The downside is that it can be pricey. Drivers will also have to get used to the smell of french fries every time they step on the pedal—Melville now refers to it as “the scent of energy independence.”
His book is packed with passages that illustrate the rewarding challenges more and more people are taking on, including an “eco-friendly Wal-Mart,” the National Renewable Energy Lab and the homes of ordinary citizens who customize their kitchens, heating systems and cars to be minimally hazardous. The best example, which he used, is his visit to the “Googleplex—the Google company headquarters—where he momentarily considers swiping some bottles of fresh juice from the employees’ fridge.
“It wasn’t that colored, corn-syrup-filled water that could kill a diabetic. No, this was the fresh stuff...Each one costs about as much as I?would earn in an hour. My kids call it ‘special juice’ because special is the day when I buy them one.”
This brief insight perfectly captures the absurdity of the modern world, when adequate nutrition is beyond the average citizen’s reach. Maybe this dude’s no scientist, but that very fact makes a strong statement about all of our lives.
Greasy Rider: Two dudes, a fry-oil-powered car, and a cross-country search for a greener future
By Greg Melville
247 pp. Algonquin Books. $15.95.