Two dudes go cross country in a fry-oil burning car. My favorite part was the realization I had that having replaced one of our vehicles with a Prius, gone organic and become a locavore, I am doing more to reduce my footprint than Al Gore (and that is according to the research done by the author who is a self proclaimed left winger and a now former Al Gore fan.) ( )

Two dudes go cross country in a fry-oil burning car. My favorite part was the realization I had that having replaced one of our vehicles with a Prius, gone organic and become a locavore, I am doing more to reduce my footprint than Al Gore (and that is according to the research done by the author who is a self proclaimed left winger and a now former Al Gore fan.) ( )

This is the story of the author’s cross-country trip in his 1985 Mercedes 300TD with his friend Iggy. Sounds normal enough, right? Well the car runs on restaurant grease, which Greg and Iggy pump from grease dumpsters as they make their way across the country. There are many hiccups in their trip. The quality of grease they get from the restaurants is sometimes very poor and often unusable. There are frequent mechanical problems.

The story of the road trip is sprinkled with other environmental expeditions undertaken by the author. He visits Al Gore’s enormous mansion in Tennessee, a wind farm in Minnesota, and a green Wal-Mart in Texas. He visits Google headquarters in California, where more than 9,000 solar panels generate energy that is sold back to the grid.

The premise of the book was quite fascinating to me, although the execution was a little awkward. Still, it’s pretty amazing that someone can drive from one coast to another using only restaurant grease as fuel. ( )

The author and his college best friend, Iggy, travel from Vermont to California in a 1985 Mercedes diesel station wagon that's been converted to run on vegetable oil. Their goal is to travel the entire way fueled by used (filtered) restaurant grease donations. On the way, Iggy challenges Greg to find out about renewable energy projects and "green" projects all over the country, and the story jumps back and forth between those trips to find out more about places like the Google headquarters and the wind farms on the northern plains, and a disappointing investigation of Al Gore's Tennessee mansion's energy use (he's not as green as he thinks he is, apparently). This is an awesome road trip story, as well as a story about what people are doing now to conserve, recycle and use renewable energy sources. I think my favorite part (other than laughing out loud at some of the things that happened to Greg and Iggy on the road) was the visit to Google headquarters... now THAT'S a place I'd love to see! Iggy, by the way, is Mrs. Fachner's son Peter, so it was even more fun to read because of that connection. ( )

I am not a nonfiction kind of gal. The main reason I read is to be entertained. I did, however, enjoy this title. Melville was entertaining, informative, and realistic. I enjoyed myself, while learning something about energy.

Traveling over 3,900 miles, Melville and his college buddy, visit the solar-powered Google headquarters (WOW); the National Ethanol Council; the wind turbines of MN; the National Renewable Energy Lab; an "eco-friendly" Wal-Mart (joke); and, the world's largest geothermal heating system (impressive and an Army facility no-less). ( )