Fourteen Dartmouth seniors and one junior will embark on a cross-country road trip this summer without ever paying the skyrocketing cost of gassing up their bus' fuel tank.
As part of the Big Green Bus Club's grassroots campaign to promote alternative fuels, the group of ultimate frisbee players will travel to over 40 cities on a converted school bus powered by vegetable oil. As well as enjoying a final post-graduation hurrah, the club members aims to combine their passion for ultimate frisbee with an effort to spread awareness of environmental responsibility.
"It started as 15 friends who wanted to hang out after graduation," logistical coordinator Aekta Shah '05 said. "Now it's become 15 Dartmouth students who want to tell the world about alternative fuels, and how it's a really viable option for the world we live in today."
Shah said that lodging and food will be provided every night of the trip. However, the group still plans on making numerous stops at fast-food restaurants -- not to refuel the students but to fill up the bus.
Shah explained that restaurants pay to have their used vegetable oil properly disposed of, and that the group plans to dispose of it for them for free by burning it as fuel in the bus' 75-gallon converted diesel tank.
After purchasing the bus for $2,500 with the club members' own money, the team took on the task of converting the tank at General Manager Ariel Dowling '05's house in Connecticut last December.
To convert the old diesel tank, affectionately nicknamed Frank, the group needed to fashion a way of filtering the oil. It also had to figure out a method of keeping it in a separate holding tank that could be warmed to 150 degrees Fahrenheit and had to switch the fuel lines from diesel fuel to vegetable fuel.
While helping to rig the heating coil system in the five-foot long, two-and-a-half-foot deep and two-and-a-half-foot wide tank, Shah recalled she had to crawl inside the tank. Other members engaged in similarly daring feats.
"In a very exciting maneuver, Doug [Hannah '05] decided to sever the heater coolant lines," Dowling wrote on the club's website, www.thebiggreenbus.org. "Well, let's just say there was a hacksaw involved and Mike [Beilstein '05] got a large shot of antifreeze (highly toxic) to the chest. It was exciting. Lots of yelling, antifreeze flying, and Doug staunching the flow with his hand (all with the bus running)."
In addition to converting the tank, the club stripped the bus' entire interior to make room for tables and chairs in the front of the bus and a sleeping area in the back.
Living out of their newly renovated vehicle, the group plans to perform amusing informational skits about alternative fuels at each stop, similar in style to the informational H-Croo skits performed for Dartmouth Outing Club orientation trips. The students will also set up booths at their weekend ultimate-frisbee tournaments, participate in several environmental fairs and set up clinics at children's summer camps.
Shah said the group has spread news of the project through e-mails to friends, family and alums, as well as online bio-diesel and environmental forums. The project has garnered overwhelming support and a contract with the Philadelphia Enquirer for news coverage.
"The people who have been contacting us have been so excited about us coming through. Every single person has offered us food and a place to stay, and [they're going to want] to meet us and party with us," Shah said. "We're going to meet so many amazing people."
The club members plan to meet the vegetable oil-powered National Outdoor Leadership School bus, arriving in Hanover this Friday, with questions about their traveling experiences.
Shah hopes that Outdoor Leadership bus members will be able to enlighten her team about how to manage and enjoy traveling cross-country with such unique transportation. But the passengers on the Big Green Bus also have a greater goal in mind for their adventure.
"The hope is the demand for vehicles with alternative fuel will increase," Shah said. "We're not going to the corporations and asking them to change, we're going to the people and asking them to demand a change."
