thedrifter
01-06-07, 08:54 AM
Posted on Sat, Jan. 06, 2007
FEEL-GOOD FILL-UP
Biodiesel co-ops bring green fuel closer to home
By JIM DOWNING
Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO - Biodiesel: It's clean, green, made in America and makes your exhaust smell like french fries.
Want to get some?
Get ready for a fuel-buying adventure. The nation's production of biodiesel is booming -- it's set to triple this year. But finding the fuel remains a challenge. And it's likely to remain so, even as the fuel gains in popularity and becomes more plentiful.
A biodiesel fill-up -- assuming you have a vehicle that burns diesel fuel -- starts with an e-mail to Steve Bash, a longtime biodiesel guru in Carmichael.
Bash provides a phone number for one of California's half-dozen biodiesel co-operatives, the chief way the state's consumers can now purchase the fuel. A call is made, an appointment set.
The trail could lead to a narrow driveway in Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood with a view of the setting sun.
Here, Obadiah Bartholomy, a 27-year-old SMUD engineer, keeps a 250-gallon tank of biodiesel in his one-car garage. Still in his clothes from the office, he trundles it down the driveway on a hydraulic jack. On top of the tank, Bartholomy has rigged a pump and a meter. A fuel filter hangs from baling wire and plumber's tape.
A 2002 Volkswagen Jetta backs into the driveway, and Will Semmes, in a blue-checked shirt and red tie, climbs out. Using a white cloth, he takes the greasy fuel hose. Bartholomy turns on the pump and keeps his hand on the switch while Semmes listens for the sound of an impending overflow: There's no auto-shutoff.
Afterward, Semmes settles up. The cost: $3.62 a gallon, compared with $2.99 diesel at the Chevron station around the corner.
Semmes paid $80 cash for his last two fill-ups. For that, he got fuel-buying ecstasy.
"It's a totally different experience from buying petroleum diesel," he said. "You actually feel good about buying gas. When's the last time that happened?"
For Semmes and other local biodiesel fans, the charm of buying fuel through a personal network outweighs the hassle and extra expense. They cite what they say are biodiesel's virtues:
• Burning biodiesel cuts net carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent or more, compared with burning petroleum diesel.
• Biodiesel supports U.S. farmers and doesn't have to be imported.
• Biodiesel generally produces fewer pollutants than standard diesel, though it does release slightly higher concentrations of some smog-forming gases.
• And, of course, biodiesel smells like comfort food.
A former platoon commander in the Marines and now the director of the California Conservation Corps, Semmes said he started buying biodiesel not long after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, when he began to see reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil as essential.
"I don't need to buy from the Saudis anymore," he said. "We've been treating our oil suppliers like gas stations, and now we're paying the price in so many ways."
Bartholomy got into biodiesel at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, and built a trailer-mounted biodiesel refinery for his senior project. He volunteered his garage as a distribution node in 2004 and now has about 15 regular customers.
Bartholomy isn't in the veggie-fuel business for the money. He sells the fuel at cost, after collecting a $25 membership fee from his customers, which partially covers his investment in the equipment -- the tank, jack, pump and meter.
Running a filling station out of his garage is a bit of a hassle, Bartholomy said -- though at least he doesn't have to drive anywhere to fill up his own vehicle, a 1981 Volkswagen pickup.
He generally meets customers in the evening. Most of his buyers tend not to drive much, he said, so they fill up only once every few weeks.
And if the scheduling doesn't work out, customers can always just buy petroleum diesel -- switching back and forth between the fuels doesn't cause problems.
Sacramento's biodiesel co-ops were organized in 2004 by Bash and now have a few hundred members, he said. He arranges 1,000-gallon-plus orders from a biodiesel distributor in the San Francisco Bay Area, which fill garage tanks like Bartholomy's.
Bash, who produces educational videos for a living, once made large volumes of biodiesel in his backyard from recycled fry grease and taught classes for others wanting to do the same. But he gave up on home brewing, he said, because of the regulatory hassles involved.
"If you want to go fully legit, there's really a lot of hoops to jump through," he said.
While biodiesel will work in any diesel engine, it's not available for retail sale yet -- unless diluted with four parts petroleum diesel -- because the federal government has yet to approve standards for it.
"It must be marketed as a 'developmental' engine fuel," said David Lazier, who until recently oversaw such matters for the state Division of Measurement Standards.
As a result, retail pumps -- including singer Willie Nelson's national BioWillie chain -- can sell only a 20 percent blend. A co-op that wants to sell higher-potency biodiesel must apply for a variance from the state and warn buyers the fuel might do unexpected things to their vehicle. Each co-op must also provide quarterly reports on the types of vehicles its members drive, and how much fuel they use.
This quasi-legal status underscores the fact that biodiesel remains a fringe fuel. Estimated U.S. biodiesel production topped 200 million gallons in 2006, but that's still just 0.3 percent of the 60 billion gallons of diesel burned in America each year.
But biodiesel production is growing rapidly, driven by consumer demand and the increasing use of the fuel in public and commercial fleets. The Natomas Unified School District, for instance, recently began operating its 39 diesel school buses on 20 percent biodiesel.
In another boost, diesel cars, long banned from California showrooms because of their polluting emissions, are set to make a comeback. At least six automakers plan to release California-ready diesel models, some slated to be in showrooms as soon as next fall.
To help feed that demand, entrepreneurs are set to open at least four new biodiesel refineries in Northern California this year.
In the long run, though, the biodiesel industry faces a supply problem: There's only so much vegetable oil to go around. U.S. soybean oil and recycled fry grease probably won't generate more than 750 million gallons of biodiesel a year by 2015, according to several estimates.
That has touched off a race to produce more plant oil. Plantations of high-yielding oil crops already have appeared in several tropical countries. And several U.S. startups are betting on schemes for farming high-fat algae to feed biodiesel refineries.
Semmes and Bartholomy agree that widespread use of biodiesel is likely years away. But they see their somewhat clandestine meetings in Bartholomy's driveway as giving the biodiesel industry a boost in its fragile, pre-commercial years.
"I think the industry is taking off because of champions like Obadiah," Semmes said. "It's affecting his personal time, and he's not making any money off of it, but he recognizes the value and is able to commercialize it through his actions."
Ellie
FEEL-GOOD FILL-UP
Biodiesel co-ops bring green fuel closer to home
By JIM DOWNING
Sacramento Bee
SACRAMENTO - Biodiesel: It's clean, green, made in America and makes your exhaust smell like french fries.
Want to get some?
Get ready for a fuel-buying adventure. The nation's production of biodiesel is booming -- it's set to triple this year. But finding the fuel remains a challenge. And it's likely to remain so, even as the fuel gains in popularity and becomes more plentiful.
A biodiesel fill-up -- assuming you have a vehicle that burns diesel fuel -- starts with an e-mail to Steve Bash, a longtime biodiesel guru in Carmichael.
Bash provides a phone number for one of California's half-dozen biodiesel co-operatives, the chief way the state's consumers can now purchase the fuel. A call is made, an appointment set.
The trail could lead to a narrow driveway in Sacramento's Land Park neighborhood with a view of the setting sun.
Here, Obadiah Bartholomy, a 27-year-old SMUD engineer, keeps a 250-gallon tank of biodiesel in his one-car garage. Still in his clothes from the office, he trundles it down the driveway on a hydraulic jack. On top of the tank, Bartholomy has rigged a pump and a meter. A fuel filter hangs from baling wire and plumber's tape.
A 2002 Volkswagen Jetta backs into the driveway, and Will Semmes, in a blue-checked shirt and red tie, climbs out. Using a white cloth, he takes the greasy fuel hose. Bartholomy turns on the pump and keeps his hand on the switch while Semmes listens for the sound of an impending overflow: There's no auto-shutoff.
Afterward, Semmes settles up. The cost: $3.62 a gallon, compared with $2.99 diesel at the Chevron station around the corner.
Semmes paid $80 cash for his last two fill-ups. For that, he got fuel-buying ecstasy.
"It's a totally different experience from buying petroleum diesel," he said. "You actually feel good about buying gas. When's the last time that happened?"
For Semmes and other local biodiesel fans, the charm of buying fuel through a personal network outweighs the hassle and extra expense. They cite what they say are biodiesel's virtues:
• Burning biodiesel cuts net carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent or more, compared with burning petroleum diesel.
• Biodiesel supports U.S. farmers and doesn't have to be imported.
• Biodiesel generally produces fewer pollutants than standard diesel, though it does release slightly higher concentrations of some smog-forming gases.
• And, of course, biodiesel smells like comfort food.
A former platoon commander in the Marines and now the director of the California Conservation Corps, Semmes said he started buying biodiesel not long after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, when he began to see reducing the nation's dependence on foreign oil as essential.
"I don't need to buy from the Saudis anymore," he said. "We've been treating our oil suppliers like gas stations, and now we're paying the price in so many ways."
Bartholomy got into biodiesel at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, and built a trailer-mounted biodiesel refinery for his senior project. He volunteered his garage as a distribution node in 2004 and now has about 15 regular customers.
Bartholomy isn't in the veggie-fuel business for the money. He sells the fuel at cost, after collecting a $25 membership fee from his customers, which partially covers his investment in the equipment -- the tank, jack, pump and meter.
Running a filling station out of his garage is a bit of a hassle, Bartholomy said -- though at least he doesn't have to drive anywhere to fill up his own vehicle, a 1981 Volkswagen pickup.
He generally meets customers in the evening. Most of his buyers tend not to drive much, he said, so they fill up only once every few weeks.
And if the scheduling doesn't work out, customers can always just buy petroleum diesel -- switching back and forth between the fuels doesn't cause problems.
Sacramento's biodiesel co-ops were organized in 2004 by Bash and now have a few hundred members, he said. He arranges 1,000-gallon-plus orders from a biodiesel distributor in the San Francisco Bay Area, which fill garage tanks like Bartholomy's.
Bash, who produces educational videos for a living, once made large volumes of biodiesel in his backyard from recycled fry grease and taught classes for others wanting to do the same. But he gave up on home brewing, he said, because of the regulatory hassles involved.
"If you want to go fully legit, there's really a lot of hoops to jump through," he said.
While biodiesel will work in any diesel engine, it's not available for retail sale yet -- unless diluted with four parts petroleum diesel -- because the federal government has yet to approve standards for it.
"It must be marketed as a 'developmental' engine fuel," said David Lazier, who until recently oversaw such matters for the state Division of Measurement Standards.
As a result, retail pumps -- including singer Willie Nelson's national BioWillie chain -- can sell only a 20 percent blend. A co-op that wants to sell higher-potency biodiesel must apply for a variance from the state and warn buyers the fuel might do unexpected things to their vehicle. Each co-op must also provide quarterly reports on the types of vehicles its members drive, and how much fuel they use.
This quasi-legal status underscores the fact that biodiesel remains a fringe fuel. Estimated U.S. biodiesel production topped 200 million gallons in 2006, but that's still just 0.3 percent of the 60 billion gallons of diesel burned in America each year.
But biodiesel production is growing rapidly, driven by consumer demand and the increasing use of the fuel in public and commercial fleets. The Natomas Unified School District, for instance, recently began operating its 39 diesel school buses on 20 percent biodiesel.
In another boost, diesel cars, long banned from California showrooms because of their polluting emissions, are set to make a comeback. At least six automakers plan to release California-ready diesel models, some slated to be in showrooms as soon as next fall.
To help feed that demand, entrepreneurs are set to open at least four new biodiesel refineries in Northern California this year.
In the long run, though, the biodiesel industry faces a supply problem: There's only so much vegetable oil to go around. U.S. soybean oil and recycled fry grease probably won't generate more than 750 million gallons of biodiesel a year by 2015, according to several estimates.
That has touched off a race to produce more plant oil. Plantations of high-yielding oil crops already have appeared in several tropical countries. And several U.S. startups are betting on schemes for farming high-fat algae to feed biodiesel refineries.
Semmes and Bartholomy agree that widespread use of biodiesel is likely years away. But they see their somewhat clandestine meetings in Bartholomy's driveway as giving the biodiesel industry a boost in its fragile, pre-commercial years.
"I think the industry is taking off because of champions like Obadiah," Semmes said. "It's affecting his personal time, and he's not making any money off of it, but he recognizes the value and is able to commercialize it through his actions."
Ellie