My family’s beloved Otto Klaus

was one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of cars damaged by hail in Thursday’s Great Northfield Hail Storm of ‘06.

While we await the edict of the insurance adjuster with bated breath, it’s likely that this wonderful ‘98 VW Jetta TDI with 120,000 miles on the odometer will be declared “totaled” because of the extensive dimpling, smashed rear window and cracked windshield. Anyone who knows diesels knows a well maintained VW TDI can reasonably be expected to be driven 300,000 miles or more. We will thus likely seek to reach an agreement with our insurer to buy the hail-damaged car back at its “salvage value” after they fairly compensate us for its pre-damaged value. (For a brief explanation of this process, click here.)

This seems like a reasonable thing to do for a car with a lot of life left, that gets great mileage (average of 45 miles per gallon burning pure biodiesel, including 52 mpg on a recent family trip to the North Shore with four full-sized humans, two of them teenagers and their stuff for eight days). From an environmental (and economic) perspective, this seems like the right thing to do, since there is a tremendous amount of embodied energy in a modern automobile. I would encourage anyone with a similarly efficient vehicle to do the same.

However, there aren’t very many similarly efficient vehicles in today’s vehicle fleet. One of my co-conspirators at RENew Northfield, board member Charlie Stark, whose rig of choice is a highly efficient 2002 Toyota Prius hybrid, suggested that this storm could have a silver lining in offering an opportunity to encourage folks replacing totaled vehicles
to replace them with much more efficient vehicles and/or ones that burn biofuels. I LOVE this idea!
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The RENew Your Place on Earth Rain Barrel

will be on exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair’s Eco-Experience from Thursday August 24th through the fair’s end on Labor Day, September 4th. These heirloom-quality 53-gallon oak whiskey barrels were unveiled at Earth Jam 2006 on Northfield’s Bridge Square on April 22nd.

The rain barrels, which capture pure rainwater, prevent stormwater runoff stream, pond and lake pollution, and provide free water for house plants, shrubs and gardens, are now available at a State Fair discounted price of $135, less than the price of most commercial plastic rain barrels.
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Maybe you’re a Minnesota State Fair junkie,

have seen the state’s biggest boar every year for the past 30 years, and look forward to those mini-doughnuts, corn dogs or deep-fried cheese curds more than you’d care to admit.

Maybe you’ve never been to the State Fair and loath the thought of being in the midst of 210,000 sweaty Minnesotans jostling each other from the Midway to Machinery Hill and back again. Maybe you’re somewhere in between.

Whichever camp you’re in, you owe it to yourself to attend this year’s fair and check out the new Eco Experience, presented by the State Fair and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
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The Northfield skyline, as viewed from the west, is about to change dramatically. I visited the St. Olaf campus today to see where things stand on wind turbine construction, and was told by

Assistant Vice President for Facilities Pete Sandberg that the turbine should begin going up immediately after the arrival of a final key component (the first, or base, section of the tower) which has been delayed in Kansas but should arrive early tomorrow (August 22nd).
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Thanks to Alden (Mac) McCutcheon for sending me a hard-copy heads-up on this article in Co-op America’s Real Money publication:

FEATURE ARTICLE – JULY/AUGUST 2006

Biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions better than gasoline, ethanol, and conventional diesel, and can help shift your energy use to renewables…

The article contains solid information. One minor gripe: the author talked with me at length earlier this summer, and used research and info from a blog I had done in April, and made no mention of RENew Northfield or the Northfield Biodiesel Buyer’s Club. In particular, see “How much do you want to contribute to global climate chaos by emitting carbon dioxide?” and “How much fossil fuel do you want to burn?”

I’ll have to make that (and other similar) information more readily accessible on our website.