THE HEMPCAR CREW'S VISIT TO THE DRUGSENSE CHAT ROOM

Kellie_Hempcar: Hi everyone

Dean: So are you back home safe now, the trip over?

Kellie_Hempcar: Nice to hear from some of you again. Yes, I'm back home
trying to destress.

Jo-D: Kellie, did you get hassled by cops a lot during your journey?

Kellie_Hempcar: Never.

Dean: Any idea of how many people came to see the Hempcar? How much
literature got distributed, etc.?

Kellie_Hempcar: We reached hundreds of thousands of people directly and
over 75 million through national media.

Kellie_Hempcar: We were on the front page of the Village Voice and on CNN,
London Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post....

Pam: do you feel that from the everyday folks, you were supported?

Kellie_Hempcar: Absolutely! The trip couldn't have happened without
grassroots support.

Kellie_Hempcar: How feasible is it that the DEA will change its laws?

Kellie_Hempcar: Hemp for biomass is feasible...

dougkeenan: How many tires did you end up retiring?

Kellie_Hempcar: 4 tires

Pam: tell us some of the highlights of the trip please

Kellie_Hempcar: Highlights border guards in Detroit stopped the car and
took pictures of themselves with it.

Ben_Masel: Hemp movement (NAIHC) has avoided lobbying Congress, instead
focusing on State Legislators. Is it time to change that?

Kellie_Hempcar: Ben, you know much more about politics than me

dougkeenan: Tell us about Roswell please

Kellie_Hempcar: The UFO museum is run by sweet little old ladies. It's
totally free. Our alternator broke after we left.

Kellie_Hempcar: We didn't see any aliens except Chuck.

scott_hempcar: Oh and we got yelled at by a motorcycle cop

dougkeenan: Got yelled at while you were moving, or while stationary?

scott_hempcar: Apparently almost joined a parade of retired USAF persons

Kellie_Hempcar: The alternator caused us to be stuck in Ft. Stockton TX
(pop. 80) for 4 days! We had to eat bread from the gas station to survive.

scott_hempcar: hehe, bread, beer, and Chinese food

Kellie_Hempcar: you call that beer???

Ben_Masel: At least you didn't have to eat your horses. er drink your fuel.

scott_hempcar: Ft. Stockton in in the west Texas desert and consists of
several hotels that service people who breakdown...and not much else

dougkeenan: How many times did you cross the Canadian border? Three?

scott_hempcar: twice in twice out

Kellie_Hempcar: two

dougkeenan: Did you have much (if any) fuel remaining at the end of the trip?

Kellie_Hempcar: We have 5 gals.

Kellie_Hempcar: We hope someone else will do a Hempcar.

Kellie_Hempcar: We are trying to get out of debt.... $10,000

scott_hempcar: i think some people in Minnesota are doing a hempcar

Ben_Masel: Missouri has a hempcar. They're filling in the central states
you missed.

Kellie_Hempcar: YaHOO

scott_hempcar: the only remaining plans we have for hempcar are finishing
the documentary and auctioning off the car

dougkeenan: Are you going to post more pictures at your site?

Kellie_Hempcar: Yes. We have 8,000 pics to go through first.

Kellie_Hempcar: Plus about 30 hrs of video.

scott_hempcar: I'm editing video from the trip

scott_hempcar: we should have some up (video at least) this week

Kellie_Hempcar: We miss you Doug.

dougkeenan: Thanks. You guys are awesome and we all respect you
tremendously. Did anybody ever "convoy" with you for any serious mileage?

Ben_Masel: Your stop at the USDA Forest products Lab seems to have
generated a lot of interest. And Representative Hahn had a hearing in the
Ag Committee last Wednesday.

Kellie_Hempcar: We didn't really encourage the gasoline powered convoy. We
had a few friends for some legs.

scott_hempcar: we had a friend follow us down the west coast from Portland
to San Fran

Pam: was the grassroots support stronger in Canada or the States?

Kellie_Hempcar: Media better in Canada. Grassroots support good in both.

scott_hempcar: the media attention was certainly stronger in Canada

Ben_Masel: Canada couldn't have pulled better media than Wisconsin. We had
a clean sweep.

Kellie_Hempcar: Wisconsin was a very good media stop.

Kellie_Hempcar: We did national Canada news 4 times. The weather lady
reported the weather in front of Hempcar.

Lindy: Canadians know a good hempcar when we see one and love our weather
reports

Kellie_Hempcar: Hempcar loves Canada.

dougkeenan: Our Indy paper pretty much stifled your visit here. They did
cover you when you made it to Minnesota though. Go figure!

Kellie_Hempcar: The Minnesota article was one of the worst ones. For some
reason it was reproduced often.

scott_hempcar: when we were on route from Winnipeg to Regina we were asked
to stop and do an interview

scott_hempcar: i can't remember the town though

dougkeenan: This was an AP release, if I recall correctly.

dougkeenan: Did you ever pass a hemp field? I saw they got the SD fields
before you got there. -(

Kellie_Hempcar: We visited a hemp field in Saskatchewan.

dougkeenan: How's Grayson? What's he up to?

Kellie_Hempcar: Grayson is sitting here.

Dean: So do you have plans for the documentary, cable or PBS?

scott_hempcar: as far as the documentary goes....I've got 30 hours of tape
to go through and several people to get footage from

scott_hempcar: i can't even begin to imagine where we would air it

Kellie_Hempcar: We're thinking about doing a coffee table book as well.

Ben_Masel: Book is a good idea.

Ben_Masel: Technical articles as appendices.

Kellie_Hempcar: We've many great photos of wind farms, solar cells.
Technical articles would be good too.

dougkeenan: Any really nasty weather you have to travel through? Wind, rain
... any snow?

Kellie_Hempcar: The weather was pretty good. A little rain in the desert.

dougkeenan: Yeah, the Hemp Car brought good weather as it traveled. It was
gorgeous here until they left, then poof! real cold.

Amanda: Do you carry all your fuel with you all the time or is it
transported to you at different points?

Kellie_Hempcar: It was shipped to strategic drop points. We carried about
40gals at a time.

Amanda: And where does it come from and isn't it horribly expensive at this
time?

Kellie_Hempcar: The hemp seed came from China and Canada. It was past being
edible. It is still expensive due to prohibition and a growing industry.

Mark: What do you think it would cost to run a car if there was total
mass-production of Hemp for fuel?

Kellie_Hempcar: If the hemp was used for biomass... making methanol it
could be cheaper than gasoline.

Amanda: Someone has probably already asked...but what is the top speed you
can achieve on hemp fuel and how many miles to the gallon do you get.

scott_hempcar: the cars top speed is 125 mph

scott_hempcar: we never drove that fast though

scott_hempcar: 27 miles to the gallon

dougkeenan: Did you get any photos with the field in Saskatchewan?

scott_hempcar: beautiful video and images, Doug

Amanda: How many acres of hemp will we have to grow if everyone's vehicles
eventually run on hemp fuel, approximately of course.

Kellie_Hempcar: 2500 miles per acre using seed oil (not the most efficient)

Ben_Masel: Hemp stalk to electricity is much closer to economic viability
than liquid fuel, in appropriate locations.

Ben_Masel: Soy oil is roughly equal in price to diesel fuel now. but if it
were widely used as fuel, that would drive the price back up.

scott_hempcar: we've heard that soy diesel has been a big success in San Fran

Kellie_Hempcar: seed oil is best used as food not fuel

dougkeenan: Fuel for people -)

Kellie_Hempcar: the remaining biomass is good fuel

Kellie_Hempcar: but then there's this problem with soil nutrient..

Kellie_Hempcar: which can be solved by better waste management schemes...

Ben_Masel: The real money is in paper.... But as we heard at Wednesday's
hearing, the industry will not take hemp seriously till they can be
guaranteed long-term supply at a set price.

Kellie_Hempcar: timber is the biggest threat

allan: Hemp can also save the forests of the pacific northwest...

Dean: Kellie, I always thought it put nitrogen back in the soil, does it
deplete other nutrients?

Kellie_Hempcar: no, whenever that much biomass is taken from the soil, a
nitrogen loss will occur

Ben_Masel: Hemp is quite nitrogen consumptive. Injecting leaf mulch back
into soil reduces the depletion.

Kellie_Hempcar: our real problem is that we don't recycle soil nutrients
but rather chlorinate them and dump them en masse or bury them in land fills

unknown: K&G.. if it only takes six% of our great nation growing hemp,
isn't there enough land to continuously move the crop to avoid soil depletion?

Richard_Lake: Rotating with clover would help.

Ben_Masel: Minerals are depleted in Seed production. A stalk as fuel
operation would cut before seeding.

allan: yes , isn't a winter cover of a good legume sufficient for refixing
nitrogen into the soil?

Mark: This is very important research, I am really impressed at what the
HempCar team has accomplished. Well done!!

Ben_Masel: Studies from '20 say it takes 3 years of alfalfa to replace
Nitrogen from 1 hemp crop.

Kellie_Hempcar: yes provided adequate management is practiced. short term
profit and such prevails...

Amanda: Something I was wondering about...the NYT article said there was a
strong odor to your emissions. Would that be a problem?

scott_hempcar: the odor is not unlike a BBQ

Kellie_Hempcar: the odor is very mild when compared to petroleum diesel

scott_hempcar: many people liken it to cooking food

dougkeenan: Yeah, it wasn't really "strong" at all - rather pleasant

Amanda: How environmentally safe are the emissions...much better than
fossil fuel I would imagine.

Kellie_Hempcar: very safe. 90% reduction in cancer risks and most pollutants

scott_hempcar: the emissions are about 80 to 90 percent cleaner

Kellie_Hempcar: does not contribute to global warming, smog or acid rain

scott_hempcar: http://www.hempcar.org/petvshemp.shtml

scott_hempcar: here's the info from our site

Dean: So Scott, after the documentary is done and the book is on the coffee
table.. got another plan on the back burner?

scott_hempcar: I think that all 4 crew members have various things they'd
like to accomplish

scott_hempcar: some involve personal projects but we are also thinking
about starting a nonprofit foundation to research sustainable energy projects

scott_hempcar: Back to the post trip question for a sec.

scott_hempcar: I'll be looking for a job in the new year)

Dean: what are your experiences Scott, besides as a videographer?

scott_hempcar: I'm a jack of all trades...I've been previously employed in
commercial tv, computer based training/education development, electronic,
anything multimedia, farming

Kellie_Hempcar: Hey people, we're headed to Scott's to pick up some vid
cables and continue the hempcar.org saga... To our friends; we love you and
big thanks to those who helped.

Dean: Before you go Scott, just remember to inform us here when the
documentary and books are published, we will help get the word out.

Richard_Lake: Is the official guest chat over, or do you wish to keep
going, Scott?

scott_hempcar: we can chat for another 5 or 10 minutes and then K&G will be
here)

scott_hempcar: I would like to say that if anyone would like to send me
audio or video talking about their hempcar experience I'd love to use it in
the documentary

Amanda: Does the car have to have a lot of special work done on it to make
it able to use hemp fuel...and is hemp fuel harder on the engine and other
parts than other fuels? Thanks.

scott_hempcar: no the car is totally unmodified