Ski Truck blazes a green trail

Author: Jeff Klein

In the competitiveness of college athletics, we often forget that the game affects more than just the winning team, losing team, and crazed supporters of both sides. Sporting events carry with them heavy environmental consequences, many of them negative.

Several Middlebury sports teams are upholding their roles as conscious stewards of the environment.

Following on the heels of the crew team, the Middlebury nordic ski team has chosen to ride to all its upcoming practices and competitions this winter season in a truck powered by vegetable oil, as opposed to conventional diesel oil. The crew team has been using the truck for about three years and will regain possession of it for its spring season.

"I just want to emphasize how unbelievably supportive facilities and the athletic department have been [of the idea]," said head nordic coach Andrew Gardner, entering his third season at Middlebury. "Erin Quinn in particular has been amazing in his support."

Coach Gardner noted how in the past, the ski team traveled in two large vans, one of which served merely as a large equipment-storage space. The process was inefficient and burned a large amount of fossil fuels.

The more environmentally friendly vegetable oil truck will allow the ski team to decrease its emissions by an estimated 85 percent from last year while cutting its overall fuel bill by one-third.

Several years ago, the athletic center purchased the truck from Greasecar, a company in western Massachusetts that specializes in auxiliary fuel modification systems that allow all diesel vehicles to run on straight vegetable oil in any climate. This year, coach Gardner went a step further and secured two grants from the Brown Foundation and the Environmental Council to purchase a processing system for the truck and an additional filtering system for the athletic department.

Since pure vegetable oil is too thick to work in the engine unless the oil is heated, coolant lines run through the tank, which keep the oil warm. Each time the truck is used, it begins to operate on the traditional diesel oil before the conversion system switches to vegetable oil. About 20 minutes before the end of the ride, the converter switches back to diesel oil.

Coach Gardner believes that this effort ties into the College's overall commitment to environmental awareness and sustainability. "In every sport, we must have the cognizance of sustainability as an undertaking," he said. "Can we measure the costs, and how do we reduce them?"

According to the Environmental Protection Agency's Web site, in the U.S. we emit 22.2 pounds of carbon dioxide for each gallon of diesel fuel burned. The Middlebury nordic ski team is clearly doing its part to bring that number down.