New Year's Eve at the Hyatt

It's here: NEW YEAR'S EVE.

What are you doing tonight? Those of you heading to the Hyatt Regency in Dearborn, make sure to book your seat BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE. Go to thenightmove.com/booking.

Only $12 to celebrate responsibly. It's metro Detroit's green public transit -- make the resolution to be green.

Happy holidays from the New Kids

OK so this has nothing to do with our usual topics of the environment, transportation, the Night Move, and Detroit, but I came across it and had to share. It's the New Kids on the Block (minus Jon for some reason) performing "Funky Funky Christmas" on Arsenio Hall. Enjoy:

Yuck.

A plastic surgeon in Beverly Hills was using his patients' fat to make biodiesel. Yeah, I know, you want to puke. And yet, it's kind of a good idea... it was just going to go to waste, right?

Check it out on Forbes.com: "Fill 'Er Up With Human Fat."

According to the article:

Love handles can power a car? Frighteningly, yes. Fat--whether animal or vegetable--contains triglycerides that can be extracted and turned into diesel.

A gallon of grease will get you about a gallon of fuel, and drivers can get about the same amount of mileage from fat fuel as they do from regular diesel, according to Jenna Higgins of the National Biodiesel Board. Animal fats need to undergo an additional step to get rid of free fatty acids not present in vegetable oils, but otherwise, there's no difference, she says.

Um, ew. Apparently the doc and his girlfriend have fled the country because using human fat for stuff is definitely illegal, on top of the fact that he was letting the girlfriend and his assistants perform surgeries without licenses, and dozens of patients reported having too much cut off of them and "left them disfigured."

I'm totally disgusted and yet all I can do is wonder what human fat biodiesel smells like. Ew, I'm sorry.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (or) Auld Lang Syne (or) What's YOUR resolution?

The new year is upon us. Get ready to make some resolutions you'll never keep.

We thought you should know: there’s still time to book a ride for NEW YEAR’S EVE!

The Night Move is an official sponsor of both the NYE Rock 'N' Roll Ball and Eve 09, which are both at the very swanky Hyatt Regency hotel in Dearborn.

Celebrate responsibly this NYE by letting the Night Move be your DD -- and make your resolution to be green a resolution you’ll actually keep. SEATS ARE LIMITED, so book them while you still can at www.thenightmove.com/booking.

I get by with a little help from cow guts

So I'm not sure if this is how Clean Emission Fluids (our biodiesel supplier, located on the grounds of NextEnergy in Detroit) does it, but apparently turning corn into biofuel has gotten easier in the past year.

"An enzyme from a microbe that lives inside a cow’s stomach is the key to turning corn plants into fuel, according to Michigan State University scientists," and according to this article, on the Environmental News Network: "Cow stomach holds key to turning corn into biofuel". Um, gross?

Basically, they pull a specific gene from a cow's stomach. This gene produces the enzyme that converts grass and other food into the sugar that fuels the cow. And they've figured out how to grow corn that has that enzyme. Magicians, I tell you.

If they put it in the right place, the enzyme makes the whole corn plant is now usable for biofuel. According to the article, "If the cell produced the enzyme in the wrong place, then the plant cell would not be able to function, and, instead, it would digest itself."

Read the article for more info. It's really super cool, but for some reason talking about cows' stomachs and enzymes and things digesting themselves grosses me out.

Earth! Fire! Wind! Water! Heart! Biodiesel!

It's been a while, faithful readers, and for that we apologize. Anyway, today we'll be talking about biodiesel. Enjoy...

The Night Move runs on B20 blended biodiesel. That means 80% of it is diesel and 20% of it is biofuel. Detroit's own Clean Emission Fluids has an on-demand blender, called a F.A.ST. unit (fluids affordably stored), which is where we get our blended biodiesel. The biofuel we're currently using is made of corn. Since I don't really speak biofuel, I found this explanation of biodiesel for your enlightenment, from biodiesel.org:

Biodiesel is the name of a clean burning alternative fuel, produced from domestic, renewable resources. Biodiesel contains no petroleum, but it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend. It can be used in compression-ignition (diesel) engines with little or no modifications. Biodiesel is simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.

Biodiesel is made through a chemical process called transesterification whereby the glycerin is separated from the fat or vegetable oil. The process leaves behind two products -- methyl esters (the chemical name for biodiesel) and glycerin (a valuable byproduct usually sold to be used in soaps and other products).

Anyway, we may move to pond algae soon instead of corn. It seems logical to me to make the switch, since using algae wouldn't threaten our food supply. Read about "Why Algae Will Save Us From the Energy Crisis" this Esquire magazine article.

Stay tuned for Night Move biodiesel developments, we'll keep you posted as they occur.

Learn more about biodiesel on Wikipedia.