Greasy Rider: Two Dudes, One Fry-Oil-Powered Car, and a Cross-Country Search for a Greener Future - Softcover

Melville, Greg

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1565125959 ISBN 13: 9781565125957

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 2008

Synopsis

Is it possible to drive coast-to-coast without stopping at a single gas pump? Journalist Greg Melville is determined to try. With his college buddy Iggy riding shotgun, this green-thinking guy-who's in love with the idea of free fuel-sets out on an enlightening road trip. The quest: to be the first people to drive cross-country in a french-fry car. Will they make it from Vermont to California in a beat-up 1985 Mercedes diesel station wagon powered on vegetable oil collected from restaurant grease Dumpsters along the way? More important, can two guys survive 192 consecutive hours together? Their expedition on and off the road includes visits to the solar-powered Google headquarters; the National Ethanol Council; the wind turbines of southwestern Minnesota; the National Renewable Energy Lab; a visit to one of the first houses to receive platinum certification for leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (Leed); an "eco-friendly" Wal-Mart; and the world's largest geothermal heating system. Part adventure and part investigation of what we're doing (or not doing) to preserve the planet, Greasy Rider is upbeat, funny, and full of surprising information about sustainable measures that are within our reach.

About this title

About the Author

Greg Melville is a freelance journalist who's written for such publications as Men's Journal, Outside, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, the Wall Street Journal, Money, and National Geographic Adventure.

Review

"A lot of interesting data . . . about renewable energy's promise and pitfalls."--New York Post

"Melville has a breezy, unpretentious style as well as the ability to work in the occasional edifying digression-a brief history of wind power, for instance, or a discussion with a professor about cellulosic ethanol-without disrupting the book's brisk, novelistic pace. At trip's end, Melville explains to his pal that they have proven something important: "If two goobers like us can actually get in a car and drive across the country without fossil fuels or putting a lot of carbon into the air, the answers for sustainability are easier than people think." --Audubon Magazine

"Melville's tale of a cross-country drive in a decades-old Mercedes converted to run on used cooking oil is... a hopeful, goodhearted portrait of those he meets be they Minnesota wind farmers or hippie diesel mechanics who are getting a head start on building the post-carbon future, a tomorrow fueled by a refreshing optimism, as well as by grease." --Newsweek

“An amusing and informative look into alternative fuels, conservation, and what individuals and corporations . . . can do about climate change.” --SEED Magazine

“An entertaining combination of On the Road and An Inconvenient Truth.”—New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1565125959
• ISBN 13: 9781565125957
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272