Sustainability is a metaphor

By Jason Burroughs

A great weekend comes to a close. For the sixth consecutive year, the Sustainable Biodiesel Summit was held in advance of the National Biodiesel Board meeting. Three days of inspiration, reconnecting, and sharing stories. I'm blogging while on an early morning flight back to Austin, reading notes from the conference and resting my aching feet. In addition to a great gathering of friends, I spent hours walking the streets of San Francisco and missing my family. Chris Continanza, my new General Manager, came with me, and together we absorbed as much as we could, shared our experiences, and came away with renewed inspiration.

The SBS is an important flipside to an industry chock full of monocropped GMO soy, splashing and dashing, and overreaching government regulations. It was born as a reaction to the first NBB conference in 2004, and has seen increasing legitimacy and relevance. Although not an actual organization at all, the SBS founders continue to pull together thought leaders and stakeholders from around the country to speak on small-scale biodiesel issues and larger sustainability topics. For me, it is as much about networking with like-minded business owners that I have come to see as friends as it is about seeing presentations about greening the biodiesel industry. I have only been to two SBS meetings, and never to an NBB conference, but I go to the Collective Biodiesel Conference in Colorado each year, which serves a similar (but more technical) purpose.

San Francisco is a fascinating market and city. I lived in San Jose and then Mountain View for a year each in 2000 / 2003, but was consumed by the tech industry I'm now crawling my way out of. The times I spent in SF proper are wonderful memories of seeing the city for the first time from the Golden Gate bridge, watching the sun set from the Sunset District, and a later vacation with my wife some years later. The biodiesel scene in the Bay area is a vibrant community of true believers, having built a legion of consumers of high-blend biodiesel over the last six or seven years. It was a real treat to get to know some of the local leaders and find out more about how things work. With multiple local retail outlets and multiple "local" distributors, there is an interesting dynamic of competition and camaraderie. In addition to grass-roots businesses, a major rendering company has announced plans for a plant in the middle of the city, and even the city itself has gotten involved. It's easy to see the Bay area as a model for other communities, and although I admire many who have pioneered biodiesel there, its unique characteristics make it less of a model and more of an anomaly. The steep hills put restaurant drums at risk for tipping; the antiquated sewage system woefully inadequate for the size of the population, coupled with years of lax regulations on the disposal of waste grease, has created an unenviable environment for used fryer oil haulers.

The start of the conference was a three hour tour to notable biodiesel sites in the area. First stop was Dogpatch Biofuels, a relatively new retail station on the north side of the Bay. Michele and Robin put $150k of their own money into building a fantastic 8000 gallon double walled tank with two pumps dispensing B100, at a current premium of about $1.50 over diesel (about 60% higher). They also sell eco-convenience items such as Clif Bars and organic shirts, as well as a nice selection of books about alternative living. Michele and Robin are well known in the SF biodiesel community, and I hope they do well. The long-term viability of a retail station such as theirs is very important; it's a model many of us would like to see replicated across the country, but some see as impossible in most markets. With fuel margins usually razor thin, profits must be augmented by sharply higher prices or by other products for sale. The era of the eco-convenience store may be on the way.

Our next stop was the Biofuels Oasis, a similar operation but at a slightly larger scale. The ladies (5 of them) that own it are true pioneers, and the new location that is just getting ready to open is a beautifully designed and constructed base of operations. With over 2700 customers, they enjoy unparalleled community support. They also plan to sell non-fuel items, which should help them reach solid financial ground for the long term.

We were fortunate to be invited to the San Francisco "Greasecyle" program headquarters on our tour, and got to learn about the city's new free program to collect oil from restaurants and residences. Trevitt Shultz of People's Fuel, a contractor who helped the city get rolling with the program, explained the intricacies of oil collection in Chinatown, the B20 mandate, and plans for future experimentation with brown grease as part of a grant program. I was very skeptical about the city taking over what I believe should be handled by the private sector, and asked some pointed questions. What I learned from Trevitt and later from Karri Ving, the program manager, eased my fears. It turns out that only half of restaurants in San Francisco have a grease trap, which means hand and dish washing goes right into the sewer. Those that do have grease traps are under no obligation to clean them out, which means that once the ratio of grease to water gets too high for the trap, it simply gets pumped into the sewer. Worse still, since they don't require chain of custody paperwork from grease haulers, a nightmare scenario in which a hauler pumps OUT his entire truck into one companies grease trap (and therefore into the sewer) is quite common. Although the city definitely could have made more of an effort to reach out to private industry (I was told by the city that Darling rejected their offer; a local hauler doing biodiesel says the city never told the public about their plans until it was too late to try and participate), they are making the best of a bad situation. Because the city is not for profit, they gladly give out their promotional materials (like grease handling instructions in four languages!) and could eventually hand the program over to the private sector once their goals are met. I no longer worry about the city of Austin trying to duplicate their efforts, and that alone is worth the time spent on the trip.

One of the most inspirational presentations I saw was given by Kumar Plocher of Yokayo Biofuels. I originally thought that he was from San Francisco, and survived on the "easy" customer base that exists there. Yokayo is actually several hours north, which made his story of producing a million gallons a year of biodiesel from used fryer oil they collect from 850 restaurants that much better. Kumar is very outspoken, has good ideas, and isn't afraid to put them into action. After my presentation on Diesel Particulate Filter issues in newer vehicles, he announced a letter writing campaign to auto manufacturers to discontinue using "late ignition post combustion fuel injection" style DPF systems. As you may have read about in my 2009 Jetta TDI story, this kind of system leaves the engine oil contaminated with biodiesel, and fails to adequately recharge the DPF. I'm sad to conclude that the 2009 Jetta TDI is simply not high-biodiesel-blend compatible. The speaker that followed me, Gary Parsons from Chevron, provided incredible clarity on this issue with his detailed technical presentation on the interplay between fuel system, emissions systems, and engine oil. This artfully balanced system relies on a narrow band of viscosity, acidity, and other properties that are just not the same in biodiesel. I walked away from that presentation seeing B5 and B20 mandates as a great medium-term goal for Austin and other municipalities. I'll always support and foster the B100 community (using B100 myself), but feel like the tide is slowly shifting away from the B100 market and toward petroleum blends. If every vehicle made in 2008 and beyond is incompatible with high blends, our market will continue to shrink as vehicles are replaced and fleets get refreshed. Either auto makers will create fuel-neutral emissions systems, or the growth of the B100 market will become secondary to needing revenue to survive. I would encourage anyone considering making a large investment in B100 to carefully consider our world 3 or 5 years down the road before making that leap. Kumar is one of the most die-hard B100 advocates, and I hopes he rallies the faithful to put pressure on the right people and companies to prevent this from happening.

One other important outcome of the conference was a great impromptu meeting of oil collectors from around the country to discuss the formation of a group. Sharing equipment ideas, sales and marketing suggestions, and collaboration on collection software could benefit everyone, and the seed was planted for a monthly conference call, each led by a different host, covering a different topic. Moya from Piedmont led the discussion and Steve from Yokayo will get us all in an email thread.

Other tidbits:
• A lifecycle analysis of yellow grease biodiesel production showed it is 2x better than soy and 8x better than petroleum diesel in terms of environmental impact
• The City of Santa Cruz has their own "Fryer to Fuel" program, but in concert with a local rendering company
• EPA has a new grant program with up to $400 million in funding for biofuels
• Clean Cities has just issued an RFP for a grant proposal for public education and community outreach
• Algae is still controversial. GMO algae is purported to be "crippled" so as to not be an invasive species outside the laboratory. Conference goers not convinced

As Lyle put it, there were many "Attendees of Note" - Frankie, Matt, Caleb, Rachel, Bob and Camille, Jeff and Tanner from the SBA, Emily, Dr. Dan, Rob "The Celebrity" del Bueno, Nataka, Kimber, SaraHope, Moya, and many others. We also met some new faces and put faces with familiar names. Although I have expressed some reservations about the SBS in the past, the networking aspect alone is something that we need to continue doing. There was some talk of consolidating the Collective Biodiesel Conference in Colorado and the SBS, and I expect a lively debate on the issue in the months to come.

So, why is sustainability a metaphor? Because what we are really trying to sustain is the connection we have with each other and the movement. The sustainability of "local biodiesel" is rarely in question, and big biodiesel producers rarely attend the SBS. The two day conference is really more of a group hug than anything else - a chance to have our stories heard, our efforts validated, and our common struggles understood. It's a Who's Who in Local Biodiesel, a labor of love for organizers, a chance for new faces to be seen and voices heard. Please join us next year in Dallas!