Sean Penn Leads Biodiesel Trek Across America

Sean Penn is fighting the war in Iraq, poverty, homelessness and saving the environment, all from a bus.

The actor, who baffled many when his name showed up on the lineup for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival underway this weekend in southern California, plans to board a fleet of biodiesel buses and take about 300 people on an 1,800-mile trek across the U.S., ending in New Orleans.

Penn's brainchild, the Dirty Hands Caravan, will take off Monday and is expected to arrive in the Big Easy on May 4 for the city's annual jazz festival.

"I see this as a reckoning," said Penn, who's set to appear twice on Sunday at Coachella. "My generation and those that came before have to recognize the numbing of incentive that we've passed on to the change hungry, imaginative, smarter than us youth of today."

Penn said he's simply providing the wheels and the young people are leading the ride.

Keep Reading

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Read about Coachella Friday here and Prince at Coachella Saturday here.

Comments

[WIDESTANCE]

what a brilliant idea !

let's make more money by growing food for our cars instead of people

that way, with way less available food on the planet, food prices will continue to skyrocket and lots more third world people will die of starvation as global food aid disappears

at least we'll have cool cars and busses to ride around in while we're patting ourselves on the back and feeling all good about ourselves for "saving the planet"

[Gumby123]

After Sean reaches New Orleans, he'll fly back to California in a private jet to offset all that nice green activism.

[Woggles]

I read a book published about 30 years ago, that claimed if every dead, dying and diseased tree was harvested in the Western forests, it would provide nearly all of America energy needs.

I wonder where I put that.

[Earl]

Problem is, the forests depend on their own decaying organic material for nutrients. Removing it would kill the forests.

[PatA]

Penn has the cojones that millions of other people won't use. if they have them.
YEA, for Sean Penn. A voice for many and the means to go do it!!!!

[Agentlady007]

Phillips had big plans for Sean Penn, and I was not going to stand in his way. He put him in my life, and he also put Vigo and Matthew Macaunahay - all three friends now who can talk about me.

Well, I will let you know when I go back to acting.

Love you!

XO

Agentlady007

[Agentlady007]

The Hard seriouys part for me about Sean was that in real life he wasn't so religious as he was natural, and to life I mean, and yet this mutual friend saw and agreed with me a raws talent that could not be anything more than star quality forevermore.

[Agentlady007]

Forgive me Father Sean for The Valley Girl Remark. I did not mean it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAa

[Agentlady007]

Wow, it's hard to describe Sean Penn. I guess this is why I knew the man who discovered him ---Donal Phillips who produced Melvin and Howared Academy Award movie including actor - man who onkly started as a casting director, and who says I am the sister type to Sean. Well, you don';t say that to a woman who is about rto fall in love with Sean Penn, who you thought was avalley guy and a Robert DeNiro lookalike. .....Yet in research Deniro and Penn are born the same day. I only spoke to Deniro, ...I made out ( not all the way mets! w/ Sean, and my big time friends said I was " Lucky". I think Madonna wanted him back then, and I felt badly cuz, I thought she was the best thing for him .

[Melchedekan]

I think what Sean Penn is doing is a great thing. I think we need more people with big names and big money like him to become more active and vocal in social and environmental causes. Seems like alot of you bloggers are all pretty bitter when it comes to being earth-friendly. Perhaps living a self-indulgent life of apathy and ignorance is more appealing to alot of you than being an environmentally friendly lifeform who has concern for the whole of the earth and not just those around them who stimulate and feed their own ego's.

[goeagles]

I thought Huffington Post was smarter then this. It is a scientific fact that biodiesel is WORSE then oil and the output of carbon to produce it is greater than the offset, it also raises food prices. Sean is an ego person. While some issues I agree with him, if he wanted to save the environment he would have a car that runs off of hydrogen.

[abouttime]

Bio deisel is a good alernative to petro-oil. Also the hype over corn ethanol challenging the food supply is just that. If farmers are paid to grow better sources of plant matrial (than corn) for the prodction of ehanol and biodeisal, then we wouldn't have this problem. "Mono culture" is an environmentally unsound method of crop production anyway.
The subsidies should be going to small farmers around the country, in regional and community based markets, thus elliminating transportation costs.
These regions, or communities, could devise enegy alternatives of all sorts and become independent from monopolies.
The current corporate cabal dictates government policies in subsidies and costs of food, water, oil and drugs.These mega-agricultural conglomerates depend on us to buy their products created in a wasteful chemically polluting economic system.
It must be broken.
Thanks Sean Penn for all your activism at a crucial time of history.

[Ajita]

This is amusing. I was going to comment about the same subject you brought up, i.e., the merits of biodiesel are over estimated, but your suggested alternative could not be more ironic. Hydrogen, really?
The Bush administration is in cahoots with the oil industry when it promotes hydrogen as the energy source of the energy. Have you not heard about the problems with hydrogen sequestration? The electrolysis process that produces hydrogen from water requires large quantities of energy, making it unfeasible. Think "Law of conservation of energy" The energy to make hydrogen comes from somewhere, usually from electricity. The goal of the administration is to create another industry that can control the power sector for the next power-era. That is why technologies like solar and wind scare them. These are genuinely sustainable sources of energy and with increased research, will become more and more viable. The future belongs to the EV. Im going off the grid as soon as I can afford it.

[Earl]

You are confusing biodiesel with ethanol. Also, that vehicle is probably not running on biodiesel, but on waste vegetable oil. Most people don't know the difference between an SVO/WVO vehicle and a "biodiesel" vehicle, of which there is really no such thing. "Biodiesel" is vegetable oil converted into something similar to diesel that any diesel vehicle can run on, with no modifications. So a "biodiesel" vehicle is just a diesel vehicle with biodiesel in the fuel tank. An SVO/WVO vehicle is a diesel vehicle converted with fuel heaters and filters to run on virgin straight (SVO) and waste (WVO) vegetable oil. The vehicle doesn't care whether the oil is virgin or waste.

[IronMikeHouston]

I like to know where the buses will be filling up at?

[Earl]

I drive a WVO (waste vegetable oil) car. When I go on trips, I use my portable GPS to find WVO. The "find nearest Asian restaurant command" usually does the trick. A knock on the kitchen door and a $10 bill gets me a 15-gallon fillup and quite often a small crowd around the car to see how it works. I keep a page in my glove compartment with a description paragraph printed out in English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, and Thai. About half the time, there is over 50 gallons of oil available, and some of these restaurants have 150 gallons or more out back. If you're planning a trip, you can use google maps and call ahead to make arrangements for oil pickup. And there are also web sites where you can get in touch with other "greasers" who have made contacts with WVO providers who can help you get oil when you are passing through their communities.

[rwe]

Use food for food and fuel for fuel... drill in alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, Nukes and Hydrogen and solar and wind (except of course if it is off a prgresseive/lib compound owned by the Kennedys

[SonofKong]

Go ahead and drill in Alaska. I'll look forward to saving $.02 per gallon in the year 2017.

[ohiomark]

Great, we get to smell a rolling vat of french fry grease flying down the highway with Spicoli behind the wheel. I hope he brought his row boat and shotgun to use in New Orleans.

[JulieSA]

As others have said here, if they're using waste oil, this is good, but biodiesel isn't completely benign. They're clear cutting orangutan habitat in indonesia in order to plant palm oil plantations for fuel. It's an outrage.

[Earl]

I think he should be driving down in a plug-in hybrid.

[Christopher1]

Sean Penn is a traitor and anybody who bothers with him needs their head checked...........

[mcnote5150]

Who are "patriots" to you? Dick and Rummy? They are the real traitors to America. What's your motto Steal from the poor and give to the rich. It's real Christian of you.

[SonofKong]

Translation from right-wing speak:

Traitor = Anybody who dares question Dear Leader and his wonderful plan.

[totalliberal]

Judging by your previous posts, you sure are a nasty little SOB. And quite stupid as well.

[momofsonofwar]

Penn is a true humanitarian and you are obvious a fool

[pedrothemigrant]

this is like smoking crack to stop drug addiction. how bout building a biodiesel plant? or funding a wind farm? installing solar power on 100 homes in NO? what a pathetic ego maniacal look-at-me-i'm-the-center-of-the-world douche.

[DMSmith]

And, one wonders, what have you done?

Just as I thought.

[Woggles]

The essentially encapsulates the triumph of emotion over science.

Think about this: If bio-deisel was the best source of motor fuel, why haven't we been making it for the past 100 years? They've know how to make it for at least that long.

Read up on oil algae, probably the only technology that has any promise.

[Earl]

Algae is the same thing, just a different plant.

[dora_rice]

HE IS A GREAT ACTOR. LIKE ALL HIS MOVIES. HE NEVER MADE A BAD ONE. HE CARES ABOUT PEOPLE AND HIS COUNTRY. HE HAS A RIGHT TO HIS OPINION. HOPE HE WILL BE AROUND STILL FOR A LONG TIME. YOU GO SEAN PENN. SORRY YOU AND MADONNA SPLIT UP. YOU WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER.

[hardrain77]

Biodesiel when made from waste matters like what Willie Nelson is also promoting is MUCH better than using food like corn, wheat and sugars--you know, stuff people normally eat.

Good for you, Mr. Penn. Ethanol is a scam gobbled up by big biotech corporations to control and drive up the food costs and markets. It's dirty and very wasteful as compared to biodesiel. Food as a weapon. That's what you're seeing in the world now.

[marijam]

Yes. Certainly cities such as New York CIty and Los Angeles should build plants that turn all refuse into biodiesel, instead of shipping that waste off to China, or wherever, on barges!

[Earl]

No need to convert it. WVO can just be filtered and it will run diesel generators.

[fishsandwichesr2good]

Interesting and ironic that Sean referred to the "hungry" given that many folks are a tad hungrier these days due in part to the food cost impact of biofuels. What a great idea: burn food to run out cars! Well thought through there Sean.

[DMSmith]

We don't need food plants to make bio-diesel. Waste fryer oil is great, and we now know how to make bio-diesel out of just about ANY plant mass - such as the part of food crops that we don't eat. That some have used food crops for bio-diesel does not mean we need to do so. The same is true for ethanol. And, by combining them both with solar and wind, we don't need one source to power our lives, and we don't need to import anything. We grow U.S. production and jobs.

How nice.

BTW - I drive a used Mercedes diesel using bio-diesel made from waste, used fryer oil from a potato chip factory and so can YOU!

[Earl]

I drive a WVO car myself.

[SonofKong]

I don't remember anyone complaining when we were (and still are) paving over some of the best farmland in the world to build 4000 sq ft McMansions and WalMart parking lots.

[Earl]

If you are using waste vegetable oil, no harm done. What else are you going to do with it?

[babylonandon]

Part 2

We need to get our energy production off of burning fuels to leave them for transportation usage. There are common sense alternatives available but we have to be sensible.

Building nukes is foolish. First off, you have all the dangerous waste to get rid of. Second you have a huge resource for terrorism. Finally, there isn't that much available uranium and plutonium to last for all that long (maybe a few decades - even if we strip our military arsenal).

We have wind, solar and huge geothermal resources. With the energy we can produce enough hydrogen and electricity for our cars and homes and in the mean time we have centuries worth of coal and oil still left.

You aren't going to be able to mandate folks going back to living in the Middle Ages or for the economy to go backwards and people will always be selfish so what we need is to find better ways to be provide energy while still being comfortable.

[babylonandon]

For waste cooking oil you are absolutely right.

However (and you guys might get some mileage out of busting on Bush for this), virtually the entire remainder of the world's biofuels programs are an ecological and humanitarian disaster.

The corn ethanol program in the US is causing global starvation and rapidly depleting usable fresh water supplies here, not to mention the fossil fuels used to provide the energy for production (7 times the cost of producing gasoline). Even the whole switch-grass program is an energy and water hog.

While everyone has been touting Brazil's cane ethanol programs for its E85 fuel, has anyone bothered to guess at the WHY they are rapidly stripping the rain forests or more to the point what they are growing in their place? If you guessed sugar cane you'd win the prize.

It doesn't matter in the end whether or not you are burning biofuel or oil based fuels, you still are producing carbon dioxide as a by product. You aren't going to stop people from driving either (unless we run out of fuel and then it is a moot point anyway as civilization will collapse) and the situation will only get worse with the rise of India and China. I'm not walking or standing outside waiting for a bus in minus 20 degree weather, either.