Click here to watch.

I called to tell Mark that I was proud of him for entering the truck in the parade and that I would be there to watch.

Mark said, “Good, you’re driving.”

Our fuel truck made a debut of sorts, at the Charlotte Labor Day parade on Monday. It’s not ready yet for fueling … we have to take it over for tank inspections and bumper upgrades later this week…but it was ready for its’ close-up.

After several weeks of work, Mark and Barnard have the truck looking good. George picked up the lettering for the sides, after some delicate democracy involving the color of the lettering, and Mike showed up with the first tank load of B100. The truck took to the fuel like a duck takes to water.

I practiced by driving it around the block at our garage location, Charlotte Energy Solutions, and then ten blocks over to the parade staging ground.

Mike placed his daughters and their friends on the back of the truck, much to my consternation. I have to admit to a small freak-out about the whole situation right before we started. My limited experience, a very tight parking lot, Mark buzzing the truck on his Segway, and small children holding onto the side of the tank. I could just see how it would all play out in stilted prose in the accident report.

But, as Mike and Mark and Denise pointed out, we were only going to be traveling at two miles per hour. And after all—take a look at those tractors and flat bed trailers — hauling children around in potentially lethal vehicles is pretty much an American parade tradition.

Anyway, it all went great. Except that the TV stations only showed the cute little girls on top of the truck rather than our nice logo and website address. Now, who wants to volunteer to drive the truck in the next parade?

Well, we did it! The call came in on Friday, and by Tuesday morning at seven we were filling up buses and trucks for the Dave Mathews band. We are now officially a biodiesel fleet supplier.

First of all, I have to give some credit to our esteemed el presidente, George. I talked to the Reverb Rock guy first, and I thought the notice was too short for us to pull off. I told him to schedule us for the next concert.

But George took the ball and ran with it, working the phone during breaks while he was stuck in a trial. Surprisingly, he was in the jury. Since our truck was not finished, he set up a subcontracting fuel service, bought 8,000 gallons of fuel from a refinery in Lenoir (friend of the co-op Randy?s Foothills Biodiesel) and coordinated an intricate hand-off of fuel from fleet trucks to an on-site fueling truck.

Denise provided moral support (emphasizing to me that it was important to do this), Sutton helped with the logistics, and I got all of the paperwork straight on Monday. Tuesday was a busy one and we worked like a well-oiled machine. George met at the first fuel transfer, I met the truck and rode it through security at the venue, and Sutton arrived just in time to keep the paperwork straight while we pumped the fuel.

Eleven semi-trucks, six crew buses, and five band buses. We pumped from eight o-clock in the morning until 4:30 at night, with a break in the middle of the day.

It was fun, it felt good, and Reverb says they want to use us for every concert in either of the Carolinas. After that feeling, and the passes to the concert and backstage bar they gave us, we?re primed to go as far as they want us to. Next time, maybe we’ll even figure in a couple of pennies for ourselves!

The lesson is this: Metrolina is starting to really get somewhere. We are now a real-live revenue-producing entity. We stumbled into this and found that it is easy and fulfilling to do. We have a truck and can service any size account. Our pump is finally, really coming. Time to stop just messing around, and make this into something we can be proud of.

I’ve cleared out the next two weeks of my schedule and I’m not working on anything else until our pump is open. I plan on starting this week by camping at the building department until finally tell us what we need (it’s been a constantly moving target) and give us the required building permits. Then I am going to do whatever it takes to get the thing done, inspected and filled with fuel. So I’ll probably call on the membership for some help during this period. Let’s do this thing!

Thanks to everyone who came out to our seminar two weekends ago! More info about the upcoming class at CPCC is forthcoming.

Tomorrow night, however, Metrolina Biofuels is having a meeting at 6:30 PM at the usual spot, Charlotte Energy Solutions. For directions, click here.

Photos from the seminar have been posted, and video excerpts as well as the full audio from all the speakers will be added soon, check back for updates.

Now is as good a time as any to join our mailing list. We’ll keep you in the loop on future developments with Metrolina Biofuels and alternative fuels in the Charlotte area.

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn’t interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

“It’s not five years away, it’s not 10 years away. It’s affordable, and it’s now,” said Wes Bolsen, the company’s vice president of business development.

Read more at Wired Magazine. Will be interesting to see where this and similar ideas lead to in the coming years.

With our first pump on Miranda Road opening shortly, I put together a video from footage taken during some recent work days at the pump. Starring Rich and Doug. More info forthcoming.

Click here to RSVP for the opening seminar on Saturday, January 26th, from 12-4pm at CPCC’s central campus.

Got started on our first pump location today. More forthcoming as the rest of the pieces fall into place. Click here for pictures, and here for video.

photo credit: Mary Ann Dawkins

The Egyptians have flown the coop. Yeah, that’s the code. We are finally ready to proceed with our pump installation at the north location.

I talked to George, el esteemed presidente, yesterday. There have been landlord issues, salvage operation issues and … well, I guess there’s no reason to air all of our issues, is there? But at the end of this month, the coast is clear.

So I’m calling it: work days on Friday, August 3rd and Saturday August 4th. We’ll have it on a weekday and a weekend day so that hopefully anyone who wants to participate can. If you can’t, no problem. Just come by and check out our handiwork anytime.

Hopefully Friday we can do some of the heavy work … we have to remove a fence, put the tank into place, rebuild a fence and build a kiosk over the pump and fence. Justin said he’ll be there and bring some help, Tom Sawyer-style.

Hard to say exactly how it will all go down, but on Saturday there will likely be a better variety of ways to contribute … we’ll have to get our information posted and decide how to protect it, etc.

If all goes well, we should be able to have a functioning tank and pump, with B99 in it, shortly after that date.

And by the way, I know that it has been frustrating working out some of the details these last months. If it makes you feel any better, the Piedmont folks took 18 months to get their first pumps installed. Granted, they were trailblazing on unexplored ground, but still, we didn’t get that serious about raising the funding, writing the grant, and hunting down location/landlord permission until October/November. We’re not doing that bad at all …

So let’s start at nine on Friday and Saturday and get this thing rolling. My jeep is crying out for bioD from a Metrolina pump!

P.S. George, can you post some directions or the address to your place? Thanks.