We’d been waiting for what seemed like hours, uncomfortably seated, shoulder-to-shoulder on a gritty lake-bed. Tense anticipation was rapidly dissolving into indifference, while the never-ending stream of deafening electronic music assailed us from every direction. The Man stood impassively in the midst of this: a giant, neon-green effigy looming over a half-mile ring of what must have been every fire dancer in North America. It was the only time at Burning Man I’d felt like a spectator, and by day 5 I’d seen enough fire dancers.

"B-O-R-I-N-G MAN!" the guy next to me yelled, and the crowd erupted into laughter.
We all wanted them to burn the damn thing.

Thankfully, the dancing finally stopped, and a shower of sparks preceded a surprisingly benign fireworks display. It could have been any town in America on the 4th of July.
More sparks, and then suddenly - *BOOM*.

An immense fireball consumed the Man and the entire supporting platform. There wasn’t even time to hit the deck, and the shock wave knocked everyone back. In a split second of calm, about the time between the initial shock and sound of the explosion, the entire crowd was united in awestruck silence.

And then it was over. The Man was burned until the rest of the structure collapsed.

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Last week I mentioned the total CO2 impact of the Burning Man festival, and how an obsession with profligate pyrotechnic displays might not strictly adhere to a thematically ‘Green’ festival. But there was a considerable behind-the-scenes effort to make up for the party. For example, few ravers were aware that many of the discotheques were biodiesel-powered? Numerous camps this year used b100 biodiesel (or a blend) in their generators, including most of the main festival’s generators (11,000 gallons total) and one of the biggest music party camps on the playa:

For five years running, now, Taylor and some 80 friends have built a series of structures that host thousands of dance music enthusiasts every night of the week-long festival. This year, the music systems and lighting in Taylor’s elaborate domes, measuring 30, 60 and 90 feet in diameter, were powered by an industrial generator producing 2.5 kilowatts, driven by a B30 blend of biodiesel (30 percent biodiesel and 70 percent diesel.)

The power draw required by the dance complexes was staggering - literally the loudest music I’ve ever heard - and other forms of renewable energy just wouldn’t cut it. Since the generators were loners, organizers weren’t willing to use B100 (and presumably straight vegetable oil) and instead relied on diesel/biodiesel blends. Had I known that the music was "powered by biodiesel", it might have put more spring in my step.

Speaking of biodiesel, one of the biggest attention-grabbers on the playa was a CO2-to-algae display where exhaust from the gas generators was being fed to living algae. It looked just like the pictures we’ve all seen of algae-biodiesel displays: greenish plastic bags with a lot of churning and bubbling going on. The display was created by a group of scientists and industry types (called the Chlorophyll Collective), who are trying to put together open-source information for growing and harvesting algae. As per usual, it all sounded great, but to my knowledge sufficient amounts of algae for harvesting were never actually produced.

The playa was abound with other green-tech type exhibits, including one I wish I’d seen, the "mechabolic": a giant model gastrointestinal tract that turned just about any waste product into fuel via gasification. Apparently, you could walk through it and see "digestion" at various stages of completion.

Burning Man also had a plethora of scheduled events, including open discussions on green tech and several environmentally-related video series. Despite these events being ridiculously hard to find (especially in the afternoon dust storms), I managed to attend one biodiesel-from-algae forum with some industry types and Inside Greentech. According to these folks, algae biodiesel is a long way off because they can’t get yields even close to what would make it economical. There was also the usual biodiesel-is-great blather, such as biodiesel is "emissions free." Whoops, I guess they need to read my biodiesel mythbuster.

Obviously, the festival is an emergent property of what everyone puts into it, and "Burners" in general seem to maintain a greater-than-average ecological awareness. Litter was scarce to nonexistent, despite the festival offering no trash receptacles. Pack-it-in-pack-it-out was the norm, even to the extent of individual camps collecting greywater from coolers, bathing, etc. (I brought home 3 gallons). Most larger camps set up black tarp greywater systems to evaporate waste water, leaving relatively little residual impact on the playa.

So what’s the upshot when it’s all said and done, the Man’s been burned, and the last bicycle has left the playa? I would like to think that festival-goers had a renewed commitment to environmental activism in their own lives, but I’m not sure that would be true. We all continue to travel, eat, and party the way we’re used to, even if it’s in the middle of the Nevadan desert. Despite these tendencies, Burning Man provided some opportunity for expanding green conscientiousness for many, and reinforced personal aspirations for others . It may be cliche, but every year should be the Green Man, or at least maintain the trend toward reduction of the festival’s ecological footprint — even if Burning Man’s overall impact pales in comparison to other world events. If, however, in our efforts to reduce global warming and practice sustainability, we as a society decide to throw out the party, the art, the dance, the music, and other forms of personal expression first — well, that just wouldn’t make much sense.

Biodiesel Mythbuster
Behind the scenes biodiesel generators: Partying to biodiesel
The Green Man
Cleantech: Carbon and algae from the playa to you.