The UNM Sustainability Studies Program is hosting the Lobo Growers Market at Cornell Plaza today.
The event will showcase local farmers and two technologies developed by Sustainability Studies.
As part of a campuswide sustainability initiative, the program bought a biodiesel Mercedes Sprinter van and converted an old trailer into a solar-powered performance and information kiosk.
"We're building more features into the market every time," said Bruce Milne, director of the program.
Milne said thousands of pedestrians walk between the SUB and Student Health and Counseling every day, giving the Lobo Growers Market huge growth potential, and the kiosk should tap into that.
"We call it the Pho-Vol Information Kiosk," Milne said. "It's a cargo trailer that's been suited up with a complete photovoltaic system to demonstrate that kind of electrical system."
Get content from The Daily Lobo delivered to your inbox
He said the solar-powered stage is mainly an educational tool.
"This market is becoming kind of a forum for community outreach," Milne said.
Terry Horger, the program coordinator for Sustainability Studies, said the kiosk will double as a performance stage during the Growers Market.
"They use our trailer to power their band - their instruments, amps and microphones," Horger said.
Milne said a cellist, harpist, disc jockey and mariachi band will all take the stage today in hopes of drawing people to the market.
"Basically, the solar panel collects the energy and then stores the energy in three large batteries in the trailer," Horger said. The trailer stores enough energy to allow a full-sized band to play for three or four hours in cloudy weather, she said.
Horger said the biodiesel van was purchased two years ago in hopes of providing an efficient vehicle for campuswide field trips.
"If anybody in our program or other programs needs to take eight or nine people on a field trip, they can use our van," Horger said. "The advantage for using a bio-diesel van is that it minimizes the carbon footprint."
Horger said the van averages 25 miles per gallon.
The biodiesel van runs on B20 fuel, meaning 20 percent of the fuel is biodiesel, she said.
The UNM Automotive Center is one of the few places in New Mexico that carries B20.
Enrique Lamadrid, director of Chicano Hispano Mexicano Studies at UNM, said his group was the first to use the vehicle in the summer of 2007.
"You might think that a vehicle that runs off of vegetable oil might just be sputtering along, but that vehicle really just rocks," he said.
Lamadrid's organization has used the vehicle for two one-week excursions in the past two summers to travel through Northern New Mexico to study traditional water management systems.
"We had to get out there to see these things, and we needed a sustainable way to do it," Lamadrid said. "We love that vehicle."
