by Ann Bartz
Cooperative efforts to produce and distribute biodiesel, an alternative diesel fuel made from animal fats or vegetable oils (including recycled restaurant oils), are springing up around the country.
What can a biodiesel co-op do for your local economy and community? It keeps the money members would ordinarily ship off to Chevron and Saudi Arabia circulating and recirculating within the community. It improves the balance of trade and energy security. And it’s another step in making it cheap and easy for people to reduce their dependence on fossil fuels. Plus it encourages people to work together toward that goal. It captures and uses something that has, until recently, been discarded as waste, which nixes disposal costs and keeps grease out of our water and sewer systems. Plus biodiesel burns cleaner than regular diesel, and improves engine performance. Biodielsel production and distribution creates local jobs, increases the local tax base from plant operations and income taxes, and can raise the price to farmers for production agriculture inputs such as soybean oil.
Ted Rouse and the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance (CSBA), the Baltimore BALLE network, recently launched a biodiesel distribution co-op. Co-chair of the CSBA, Ted Rouse has spent more than 25 years in urban regeneration. He is a major builder and smart growth developer of office, retail, industrial and green-built residential communities in the Baltimore and mid-Atlantic region. In 2004, Ted sold part of his interests in his firm and formed Healthy Planet LLC to focus on sustainable real estate and economic development projects in Latin America. Some of those projects include carbon credit financing in HOnduras, sustainable tourism development in Mexico, and urban permaculture in Brazil.
Along with other owners of biodiesel cars in Baltimore, Ted was frustrated about having to drive an hour out of the city to buy fuel. Inspired by the Berkeley biodiesel co-op and the National Biodiesel Board, he began holding monthly meetings with interested CSBA members. Then, with partner Davis Burkhardt, he decided to turn the idea into reality. They found real estate and someone with the equipment they needed, and began making biodiesel. But getting consistent quality and labor was harder than they’d imagined, so they changed their goal to becoming a distributor instead.
Ted’s best high school friend loaned them a 2000-gallon tank and warehouse space in the city. They ran into trouble with the tank – the EPA requires anyone storing anything in a tank that large to file a spillage containment plan for approval and to get a permit for aboveground storage tanks. Their biodiesel supplier, Taylor Oil, which supplies construction sites, found them a 500-gallon tank and a containment tub, as well as a pump – while they were under the impression they would get a discount for the bigger tank, that turned out not to be the case.
The co-op started in October 2006, distributing out of the 500-gallon tank. The co-op pays $3.17 per gallon, which includes 48 cents per gallon in fuel taxes. It costs $100 to join, $70 of which is a non-guaranteed loan to pay for the initial costs of the co-op. It also covers the cost of a booth at the farmer’s market ($50/ month) and a credit card processing machine. Volunteers take turns staffing the co-op on Friday evenings and Saturdays.
One issues they dealt with is keeping the tanks warm. Biodiesel can gell in cold weather. They mix B99 with kerosene to make B50-55 and then go back to B99 in warm weather.
The group ended up getting a $3000 grant from the Maryland Department of the Environment. It covered the hard costs to get up and running – tank, pump and the relatively expensive security enclosure for the pump. Two-thirds of the funds paid for costs other than fuel; the other third plus member dues covers the fuel costs. In-kind donations covered some of the costs of the tank and storage. They’ve also received help from the Maryland Soybean Promotion Board, whch has a subsidy program to encourage people to use biodiesel.
The co-op model is working well for them. Most gas stations make their money off the attached convenience store as they sell gas at very slim margins. With a co-op, there’s no worry about margins or profits, just making back their initial investment and being able to cover the costs of modest growth. Instead of making a lot of money, their goal is to allow the people of Maryland better access to biodiesel and a smaller carbon footprint.
The Baltimore Biodiesel Cooperative is now a Maryland nonprofit organization that distributes and promotes biodiesel for on and off-road vehicles for government, business and private use. The co-op offers support to Maryland residents interested in biodiesel, whether they want to brew it themselves, brew it in groups, or purchase it from the co-op as a member.
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Biodiesel America includes a Google map of many biodiesel coops.
Ann Bartz is program manager for BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies) based in San Francisco, CA. www.livingeconomies.org
FROM In Business, a SustainableBusiness.com Content Partner.
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