Students’ Biodiesel Processor to Help Haiti

A school in Chicago is finishing up a $3,000, solar-powered biodiesel processor that will be sent to Haiti.

This story from Chicago Public Radio says a team of 10 girls from the private, Catholic, all-girls Mother McAuley High School have put the processor together in hopes of sending it to the small town of Pichon, Haiti to provide the town with a way to make biodiesel using only solar power and to give the village’s school electricity for the first time:

Dr. Roz Iasillo says the processor was built to provide electricity for an elementary school and will produce nearly 48 gallons of biodiesel fuel.

IASILLO: With any development in developing countries it’s the small scale projects that are the most successful. So we see this as, you know, providing them the opportunity to run a small scale, micro lending type of process, where they can kind of jump start their economy.

The processor was to be shipped this April, but the massive earthquake has put that on hold.

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