Colleen enjoys Irish dancing, cooking, sailing, cheerleading, and camping. She'd like to become a scientist or engineer someday "because the most important natural resource is the human mind."
After learning about the limitations of dependence on petroleum, Colleen started researching alternative fuels. Soybean-based fuel seemed ideal, because the carbon dioxide released from burning it is almost the same mass as needed to grow the soybean. Soybean fuel is also biodegradable.
Colleen made 3 liters of soybean fuel by reacting soybean oil with ethanol and sodium hydroxide. She took care to maintain a pH of at least 8.5 to prevent the mixture from gelling. She compared her fuel with conventional fuel in a truck on a 3-mile course. Conventional fuel provided a 9 percent mile-per-gallon advantage. However, Colleen concluded that biodiesel could be mass produced cheaper than gas and sold for about $1.25 per gallon.
