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Every year St. Louis holds a large Earth Day celebration in our enormous Forest Park. Bands perform on the outdoor stages, volunteers cheerfully operate valet bicycle parking stations, vendors sell local and organic foods, and for-profit and not-for-profit organizations from around St. Louis set up booths to inform people of the steps they are taking to improve the world we live in.

This year the main celebrations are being held on May 1st, the week after Earth Day’s official date (April 22nd). The weekend of the actual day is busy with other events around town, at places like the Botanical Gardens and the City Museum.

This year for the first time the St. Louis Biodiesel Club will have a booth at the festivities. We’ll be making small batches of fuel at the booth for demonstration purposes, have samples available for people to handle, answer questions about biodiesel in general, and biodiesel homebrewing. We may also get some space to bring a biodiesel car or two down, as well as a portable processor that we are building for full-size fuel making demonstrations.

The event is fun to attend, and should be even more fun to participate in. Education comes naturally to me, and I’m excited about the possibility of getting ourselves out there on a more active basis.

Rust is the sworn enemy of all things metal. Horrible oxygen intrusion will destroy even the most carefully laid sheet metal. This is particularly problematic with older cars. My ‘82 Mercedes 300TD is a good example. It has 250,000 miles on it, and is in wonderful shape. However, the body is beginning to deteriorate. Eventually rust will attack and destroy critical structural elements and no rebuilt transmission or flawless engine will prevent it from being junked. However, if rust is caught early it can be slowed or stopped, adding many years to the car, and preventing the purchase of yet another new automobile.

POR-15 is a product designed specifically to help fix rusting metal. Unlike most paints, POR-15 is a moisture curing epoxy that, when painted directly onto rust, will suck the moisture out of the rust and seal it up, preventing further growth. Traditional paints just trap the moisture, letting the rust continue unhindered and out of sight.

Continue reading for a picture-heavy description of the process. Continue Reading »

It has been said that deep within the forest lies a creature. A creature so well camouflaged that you may never detect its presence. So well adapted that it can consume nearly anything (or anyone) as its food. So hardy that it can survive in nearly any climate.

This creature does not sleep, and is not bound by the rising and setting of the sun. All day and all night it sends its tentacles forth, seeking food.

What would you do if such a terrible freak of evolution were to lay its slimy tentacles on your own home? How would you react to such a thing??? Why, you would eat it. Because our freakish friend is no foe, but fungus. Specifically Pleurotus pulmonarius AKA, the Oyster Mushroom.

Despite being tasty and nutritious, this particular fungus is well known for its virulent behaviors. It will colonize nearly anything, and consume a surprising range of foods, including used motor oil and diesel fuel. Paul Stamets and friends at Fungi Perfecti have been working on using mycoremediation to cleanse areas affected by oil spills and other toxic contamination.

The particular oyster mushrooms that are growing in my house began their life as a jar of spawn (mycelium, the true body of the fungus, growing on birdseed or other grains) given to me by Will. A suitable substrate was found (dry, tall, ornamental grasses from our garden), which I pasteurized in the microwave. The grain spawn was broken up, and used to colonize two bags of moist straw. In less than two weeks the straw was completely colonized.

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One bag of colonized straw was placed in the fridge to ‘rest’ for a while, while the other bag was immediately fruited. I stabbed a bunch of slits in the surface of the bag, and began to illuminate the fruiting chamber for a few hours a day. The fresh air combined with the light indicated to the fungus that it was time to fruit. Pins (tiny immature mushrooms) are beginning to reach out of the bag and develop.

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This first bag will be fruited normally, and the fruits enjoyed as food. However, the second bag will be part of an experiment. The glycerol byproducts from biodiesel production are technically fermentable by fungus. However, what concentration will they accept, and will the methanol or catalyst be a problem for the fungus? I’ll be ‘feeding’ the mycelium some byproduct soon to see how it reacts. I may or may not eat those mushrooms.

Next on the list is a jar of Reishi mushroom spawn, a woody mushroom commonly grown for medicinal use. What wonders lie beneath its wispy white surface?