UNIFLIP SAMPLE - CO-OP America Page 29

SUMMER 2007

Co-op America Quarterly

www.coopamerica.org

Fuels

for

the

Future

TRUE TALES

How Eric Henry helped formed a biodiesel

cooperative to make this alternative fuel easier to

obtain where he lived.

ERIC HENRy, BuRlINGTON, NORTH CAROlINA

Running your vehicle on B100 is one

of the best ways to cut your personal
global warming emissions using current
technologies (see p. 20). And if you can't find
B100 in your area, the easiest way to obtain
biodiesel is to make it yourself. While many
do-it-yourselfers simply use an old blender
and a handful of other supplies, investing

in a biodiesel processor helps ease the process. Most processors
cost around $3,000 and will make about 45 gallons in each batch.

Eric Henry, owner of Co-op America business member

T.S. Designs

--and a new Co-op America board member,

elected by our business members--bought his own Fuelmeister
processor in 2003, after having his interest in biodiesel piqued at
Solfest, a two-day gathering of people interested in learning about
and using renewable energy.

"I knew that the driving you do in your car is one of the biggest

impacts you have on the environment, so I was excited about
what I was learning about biodiesel," he says. "When people
found out what I was planning on doing, they all said, `There's
no way you're going to make fuel out of french fry grease.'"

But Henry refused to let the naysayers curb his enthusiasm,

and he bought a diesel Volkswagen to go with the Fuelmeister. In
short time, he was making 45 gallons of biodiesel fuel a month.
Running on biodiesel, Henry's VW Golf got about 45 miles to the
gallon, and people's doubts about running a car on vegetable oil
started disappearing. His wife soon caught on and bought a diesel
car, followed shortly by his business partner. Soon they were all
fueling their diesel vehicles with biodiesel made from waste
vegetable oil, but the Fuelmeister couldn't process enough
biodiesel to meet all of their needs.

"We were making 45-gallon batches a couple times a week,

but we couldn't keep up with our demand," he says. "So we sold
the Fuelmeister to a local university and built a larger one our-
selves, while we formed the Burlington Biodiesel Cooperative."

As more of their friends started catching on to the benefits

of biodiesel, forming a cooperative made more and more sense.
"By bringing in other people, we were able to share the expense,
share the work, and share the fuel," he says.

By forming a cooperative, members can pool their resources

to purchase the required equipment and ingredients to make
biodiesel. In addition to sharing costs, forming cooperatives helps
give more people access to biodiesel without being subject to
laws regarding commercial sale.

The Burlington Biodiesel Cooperative has ten members, all

of whom assist in the production of biodiesel. Each member
promises at least three hours of work each week. Together, the
ten members make about 300 gallons of biodiesel each week,
made from waste vegetable oil they gather from local restaurants.

"We think we have the perfect community model," says Henry.

We're getting our oil locally, brewing it locally, burning it locally,
and improving local air quality."

The Piedmont Biofuel Cooperative in Piedmont, North

Carolina, has a different model, notes Henry; rather than being a
working cooperative, where each member promises to work a
certain number of hours each week, members pay a fee to belong to
the co-op. This membership gives them access to the cooperative's
biodiesel, even if they didn't help to make it themselves. This
model allows the sale of biodiesel to grow commercially.

"Even though that's not our model, because we aren't interested

in producing more than we're using ourselves, we support this as a
way to get fuel to more people," says Henry. In fact, the Burlington
co-op is installing a Piedmont Biofuels pump on their property, so
that Piedmont members can fuel up when they're in Burlington.

For those interested in sharing biodiesel among friends, Henry

says, "We are open source on all our developments and have
helped people around the world start similar co-ops."

To that end, Burlington Biodiesel has put its cooperative

agreement and other information on its Web site,
www.burlingtonbiodiesel.org. Henry says people can also find
out how others across the country are using similar cooperative
models at the Biodiesel Co-ops Conference, which will take place
July 13-15, 2007 in Golden, Colorado. Visit www.b100.org for
more information.

"Biodiesel is not the total solution to our oil addiction, but

is an important part of the solution for our country to become
energy independent," says Henry.

--Sarah Tarver-Wahlquist

differ so widely from those for cellulosic ethanol, that the
80 new corn ethanol plants slated for production in 2007
alone will be useless for making cellulosic ethanol.

"We're committing ourselves to decades of dependence

on corn ethanol," says Freese. "Once you build that infra-
structure, you pen yourself in. We can't use those same corn
ethanol plants to produce ethanol from cellulose."

sToP THE ETHANol INsANITy

Environmental and food advocates agree--the full-throttle
movement towards corn ethanol has to come to a halt, fast.
Holt-Gimenez sees consumers and activists playing an im-
portant role: "If we want to stop this current trend toward
monoculture and corporate domination, we need people to
urgently mobilize around this issue."

In the face of congressional enthusiasm for corn ethanol,

it's up to us to sound the alarm that this is the wrong direc-
tion for our country (start by sending the postcards next to
p. 18 to auto companies and your representatives). There are far
better solutions to the climate crisis and oil dependence.

"Anyone can see by looking at the characteristics of the

different biofuels that corn ethanol isn't `green,'" says Alisa
Gravitz, Co-op America's executive director. "You don't have
to crunch numbers very long to conclude that ethanol isn't a
fuel solution for people or the planet. As a country, we should
be moving towards driving less, improving fuel economy,
and advancing plug-in hybrids powered by electricity from
renewable, green sources."

--Sarah Tarver-Wahlquist and Tracy Fernandez Rysavy