“Coolfuel is anything besides gasoline. You can grow it, squeeze it, fry it, heat it up or catch it. Heck, you can even eat it.”
Photo courtesy of Balance Vector Productions
January 2006 | Feature Story
When Cool is Fuel
From garbage to vegetable to corn whiskey, Australian adventurer Shaun Murphy teaches America a welcome message
By Miryam Gordon
Cool is an overused word. There is “cool” and then there is cool.
Shaun Murphy’s TV documentary show is cool.
Murphy drove 16,000 miles in 2004 using only alternative fuels. He filled his auto engine with sugar sometimes, other times soybeans or water or vegetable oil, then took off.
It sounds like science fiction. But not. Think more adventure television programming.
The Australian adventurer and a TV crew crossed the United States to prove a point. Alternative fuel is not only possible (he did this more than a year ago, remember), it’s entertaining and, well, cool.
You can see Murphy’s adventures on KSTW-Channel 11 (1:30 p.m. Saturdays). The show is called "CoolFuel USA Roadtrip."
"Coolfuel is anything besides gasoline," explains Murphy. "You can grow it, squeeze it, fry it, heat it up, or catch it. Heck, you can even eat it!"
Murphy talks in exclamation points, but he isn’t the first Australian celebrity to do so. It doesn’t deter from the show’s18 episodes. Murphy takes the viewers to meet the alternative fuel challenges plus the innovators and inventors who design and build all sorts of alt-fuel vehicles and figure out what can be converted into fuel.
Cow manure, hot rocks, corn whiskey, garbage – it’s all coolfuel and a lot less expensive than regular gasoline So inexpensive that along the way Murphy was able to barter for his fuels.
For instance, in the "Cow Poo" episode, he milks 20 cows and learns how cow manure is converted into methane that runs a generator to create electricity.
San Francisco start
The crew started off in June 2004, in San Francisco, having done some research about their planned route, so they could find inventors and developers of cool vehicles to drive on their journey.
"I thought,‘This is a really big country!’ and wasn’t sure we could get around the whole country without gasoline,” recalls Murphy. “We started to find out it was quite regional: Wisconsin had a lot of cow manure, Iowa had corn whiskey, New York to DC had garbage and Florida had sugar. Essentially, we joined the dots to make these fuels get us down the road."
Among the highlight machines: An electric motorcycle powered by cow manure and garbage, an airplane flying on corn whiskey, an RV powered by soybeans and the sun, a retro jet turbine-powered pickup truck fueled with vegetable oil.
Popular celebrities who make green living a cause, such as Daryl Hannah and Ed Begley, Jr., became attracted to the adventure and joined in.
Next stop: Washington and San Juans
The second episode of the series shows Murphy’s trip through Oregon and Washington to the San Juans. It will re-air in April as the series loops a second time.
"We ran on biodiesel in Washington and hooked up with Jim Armstrong from the Spokane Conservation District, who found us a Volkswagen to drive through Seattle and up north,” says Murphy. “The biggest challenge was to find a guy with a diesel boat and convince him to run biodiesel, which he hadn’t done before. The boat ran like a champion and we finished the challenge."
Their trip was hardly without problems or mishaps or getting lost. In Florida, while they had planned on using sugar as a fuel, they didn’t think about harvest season. When Murphy and the crew arrived, the cane had all been harvested and there was none left over. They solved the problem using a solar-powered canoe, carried from Australia, to get through the Everglades.
Even non-production days featured energy savings.
"Our crew rode in an RV that was powered by vegetable oil." Murphy says. "This was the longest trip any television crew has made without gasoline, for sure."
Previous trip in Australia
Murphy had experience traveling this way. He prepared for his U.S. trip by traveling around Australia.
Nonetheless, there were difficulties. Episode 14 goes over the tribulations endured, including Murphy breaking his foot and ending up in the hospital.
Episode 17 introduces some of the inventors who made this trip possible with innovative new designs. Murphy clarified that there are already 4 million vehicles in the U.S. that can run on ethanol and that any diesel engine can run on biodiesel.
"We actually found a Hummer, the biggest gas guzzler on the road, and got it to run on food (donuts, left over Cajun food, vegetable oil) all the way across Louisiana. We tamed it!" Clearly, there are a lot of people trying hard to find cheap and accessible ways to power our lives in the near future.
The 18 episode series started in mid-December. Viacom picked up the program for all its UPN stations. You can check www.coolfuelroadtriptv.com or www.kstw.com. The CoolFuel web site features more information on each of the vehicles used, all of the fuels used and more about each of the inventors. Children are encouraged to go to "CoolFuel School" where they will have developed games to play and projects to do (as of this writing, the games are not yet online).
Murphy’s future plans include raising funds to do a "CoolFuel Canada," "CoolFuel Europe" and even Africa and Asia. When asked what was most surprising about people in the States, Murphy says, "The hospitality and generosity were incredible; people did anything they could for us.
“The pioneer spirit was really strong, with so many people attempting new things and pulling them off."
Miryam Gordon is Events editor for Conscious Choice.
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