Awake at the Wheel

Propel’s commitment to alternative fuel access and sustainability includes economic sustainability. As a retailer, Propel purchases biodiesel at wholesale prices, and sells to our customers at margins equal to or less than traditional petroleum retailers. As wholesale costs rise for biodiesel, Propel is committed to offering clean fuel access at a reasonable price point. And our fuels and vehicles team is aggressively looking at biodiesel supply options that meet our quality, cost and sustainability parameters.

There is one main factor driving the current pricing increase: the price of vegetable oil. In the past 12 months, March 2007 to March 2008, prices have jumped 90% for soy oil.

For biodiesel producers, between 80% - 90% of the input cost of biodiesel production is vegetable oil, like canola and soy oil. And vegetable oil is currently selling at a price equivalent of between $180-$190 per barrel. This is an increase is due to speculation, not market demand. Global demand for consumable veg oils has risen at a consistent 3% level for over two decades and continues at this level. There has not been a significant demand increase, or supply decrease, that explain the price run up in veg oils. Commodities across the board have risen at the same pace- petroleum, minerals, and all agricultural products. On the upside, current economics benefit USA farm communities.

Propel is dedicated to providing the most sustainable and renewable fuels that meet our cost and quality standards. We are working hard to open markets for new feedstocks and technologies that offer viable alternatives to petroleum. Together with you, we are pioneering new ground, creating economic opportunities, and building a sustainable future for our children. We will keep you informed as biodiesel prices change. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to write us. Thank you for your commitment to clean and renewable biodiesel.

We’d also like to credit Becky Lyle, a WA small farm owner, and NW Biodiesel Network, for the ongoing discussion of feedstock costs. Join the NW Biodiesel Network email list, visit http://www.nwbiodiesel.org/mail_list.htm.

New Report from Worldwatch Institute…

“Decades of declining agricultural prices have been reversed thanks to the growing use of biofuels,” says Christopher Flavin, president of the Institute. “Farmers in some of the poorest nations have been decimated by U.S. and European subsidies to crops such as corn, cotton, and sugar. Today’s higher prices may allow them to sell their crops at a decent price, but major agriculture reforms and infrastructure development will be needed to ensure that the increased benefits go to the world’s 800 million undernourished people, most of whom live in rural areas.”

Biofuels for Transport, undertaken with support from the German Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection, assesses the range of “sustainability” issues the biofuels industry will present in the years ahead, ranging from implications for the global climate and water resources to biological diversity and the world’s poor. The book finds that rising food prices are a hardship for some urban poor, who will need increased assistance from the World Food Programme and other relief efforts. However, it notes that the central cause of food scarcity is poverty, and seeking food security by driving agricultural prices ever lower will hurt more people than it helps.

Growth in biofuels production may have unexpected economic benefits, according to the experts who contributed to the report. Of the 47 poorest countries, 38 are net importers of oil and 25 import all of their oil; for these nations, the tripling in oil prices has been an economic disaster. But nations that develop domestic biofuels industries will be able to purchase fuel from their own farmers rather than spending scarce foreign exchange on imported oil.

 From The Economist Via AutoBlogGreen

 Report: The Real Price of Gasoline (.pdf)

Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to
$1.69 trillion per year, which, when added to the retail
price of gasoline, results in a per gallon price of $5.60
to $15.14. 

This report by the International Center for
Technology Assessment (CTA) identifies and
quantifies the many external costs of using motor
vehicles and the internal combustion engine that are not
reflected in the retail price Americans pay for gasoline.
These are costs that consumers pay indirectly by way
of increased taxes, insurance costs, and retail prices in
other sectors. The report divides the external costs of gasoline
usage into five primary areas: (1) Tax Subsidization of
the Oil Industry; (2) Government Program Subsidies;
(3) Protection Costs Involved in Oil Shipment and
Motor Vehicle Services; (4) Environmental, Health,
and Social Costs of Gasoline Usage; and (5) Other
Important Externalities of Motor Vehicle Use.
Together, these external costs total $558.7 billion to
$1.69 trillion per year, which, when added to the retail
price of gasoline, results in a per gallon price of $5.60
to $15.14.

One day’s CO2 produced by typical gasser car. A big charcoal briquette. (click to enlarge)

Based on 12k miles/year and standard EPA CO2 emissions by fuel:_
7,510 pounds/CO2/Year: Gas VW Jetta at 31 mpg. 19.4 pounds CO2/gallon x 12,000 annual miles/31
6,498 pounds/CO2/Year: Diesel VW Jetta at 41 mpg. 22.2 pounds/gallon x 12,000 annual miles/41
4,565/pounds/CO2/Year: - Toyota Prius at 51 mpg. 19.4 pounds CO2/gallon x 12,000 annual miles/51
1,430 pounds/CO2/Year: Diesel Jetta on at 41 mpg. b100 Biodiesel
(78% reduction vs diesel, 69% reduction vs Prius, 81% reduction vs gas)

Via GreenCarCongress and other sources

Blue Sun Biodiesel Goes Public Via Reverse Merger

SunFuels, Inc., and its operating subsidiary Blue Sun Biodiesel LLC, are executing a reverse merger transaction with M-Wave, a publicly-traded printed circuit board supplier. When the transaction is complete, SunFuels execs will assume control of M-Wave, which will change its name to Blue Sun Holdings, Inc. The operating subsidiary will be renamed Blue Sun Biodiesel, Inc. The resulting company will continue to be publicly traded.

For the year ended December 31, 2005, SunFuels generated consolidated revenues of $4.5 million and a consolidated net loss of $0.7 million (audited). For the 12 months ended September 30, 2006, SunFuels generated consolidated revenues of $6.9 million and a consolidated net loss of $0.2 million (unaudited).

We wrote about the inevitable biodiesel surplus in our 2007 prediction post. Ethanol faces the same market dynamic. The ethanol business has its origins in top down, mandate and blending based, constructed market pull. Midwest Gasahol in the 80s. This has changed a bit recently, with marketing dollars and high gas prices building a viable consumer demand near corn production regions where economic upside is local, and FlexFuel vehicles are available. For most fuel retailers, the downside MPG of e85 limits retail pricing power, limiting consumer access to niche providers.

Biodiesel, on the other hand, delivers near equivalent MPG and is the ultimate “FlexFuel” i.e. backwards compatibility with any diesel engine powered vehicle. Biodiesel users pay for the upside benefits: CO2 reduction, renewable and domestic fuel advantages without a significant performance or MPG penalty. Biodiesel’s lifecycle energy balance is also significantly more positive than ethanol. Yet, these two fuels remain linked not only in D.C. policy but in Big Oil uptake blending contracts and downstream supply choices, and of course crude oil contracts and price at the pump.

When ethanol/biodiesel is cheap, the refiners blend low and make money on volume. When ethanol isn’t cheap, the refiners only blend to state or Fed mandates. E100/B100 blend stock has no pricing power when feedstock prices rise and petro prices fall. Ignorance of the last mile delivery, positioning, and greed, are leading to the inevitable crash and investor bloodbath of 2007. The small, feedstock isolated biodiesel production start ups will be the first to go, as their “creative” project financing scenarios allow investors to pull the plug vs throwing good money after bad into a small market that now includes Cargill and ADM. Feedstock and scale win.

EnergyWashington reports: Congress May Be Needed To Keep Ethanol Bubble From Bursting

Plummeting oil and gasoline prices, spiking corn prices, historically high natural gas prices and ethanol production capacity reaching 15 billion gallons in a few short years are all the ingredients needed for a market massacre in the ethanol industry. Unless Congress comes riding to the rescue.

…So, if the price of gasoline were to drop substantially below the price of ethanol, why would any refiner add a high priced fuel additive, beyond the 5.4 billion gallon 2008 requirement of the renewable fuel standard (RFS) when cheaper alternatives exist? Suddenly a 15 billion gallon ethanol industry could find demand is only 5.4 billion gallons. The market solution is to cut ethanol prices, and a market collapses. Small, high cost producers would be the first victims, many of them pioneers in the farmer co-operative approach to building a viable U.S. ethanol industry. Small producers face not only the cost pressure of higher feedstock and operating costs but they also lack the capacity to store their product to wait out price declines. Increasingly the railroads, which ship the bulk of ethanol in the U.S., are demanding ethanol plants ship via so-called unit trains, i.e. single commodity ethanol trains consisting of 100 cars or more. Ethanol plants must have a quarter mile or more of railroad spurs available to process unit trains, which many of the smaller plants do not have, putting them at a further disadvantage.

Biodiesel saved Metro $450,000

The Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority, the agency that runs the Metro bus service in Cincinnati and Hamilton County, estimates that it saved almost $450,000 in 2006 by using biodiesel, which is fuel made from an organic compound, such as soybeans.

The speculative money pumped into biodiesel production start-ups is about to reach it’s expected outcome: a very oversupplied domestic market. In fact, this market condition already exists, with much domestic biodiesel production heading to Europe in late 06.

One industry insider, who prefers to remain anonymous,  predicts…

“Total U.S. biodiesel capacity will be at less than 50% utilization in 2007, which will effect planned delays in several new plant construction projects as well as some complete plant shutdowns; marketers and retailers will benefit from good pricing.”

Some 80% of on-road diesel is sold at public fueling locations. So will Big Oil help make biodiesel available? American Petroleum Institute President Red Cavaney, in an exclusive interview with EnergyWashington senior editor Peter Rohde, says…

“You have got to remember, when you get down to retail only 5 percent of the retail stations are owned by the oil companies or the refiners. The rest of them are owned by individual businessmen or women. Some of them are jobbers, but a lot of them are just independents. Those are the ones that make those decisions. So they have got to see in their community enough demand to make them feel comfortable, and the government is going to give them credit so they can factor that in and all, and I am sure to a degree that will help a lot of people in their decision, but at the end of the day it is individual business men and women that are going to make these decisions. So the oil company is not going to decide this.”

So all the biodiesel demand side pull will come from mandated RFS laws? Or will a true, ground up market develop? Of course, this could all change if crude reaches $85/bbl and stays there. But this doesn’t seem likely in the near term, given the market’s new-found ability to withstand the same events that shocked crude up $5 a day back in ‘05 (like Nigerian oil worker kidnappings or threats of war against Iran).

We expect biodiesel wholesale prices to squeeze in 2007 and beyond. The producers with control over feedstocks will be in the best position to ride out the storm (Cargill, West-Central, etc).

What does this mean for biodiesel users? Frankly, don’t expect Big Oil to offer biodiesel at the pump anytime soon. They have nothing but upside should biodiesel producers fail. Like any true market, the answer will come from businesses serving a demand that really exists. Propel will continue to target biodiesel outlets at business and communities that are willing to pay for the benefits of biodiesel. In fact, they just may end up paying less in the end.

Propel’s Laurelhurst location is selling B99 @ $3.03 this week, vs $3.11 for dirty diesel (directions to station).

Winter blending: We recommend a 50/50 blend, below 40 degrees, this winter season. Laurelhurst has two B99 and two D2 pumps on the island. We’re working with producers and additive manufacturers to offer a B-better winter biodiesel fuel next season.