Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
- From: "Tom Simonds" <tsimonds@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 08:19:08 -0500
December 30, 2005
His Car Smelling Like French Fries, Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
By DANNY HAKIM
Willie Nelson drives a Mercedes.
But do not lose faith, true believers. The exhaust from Mr. Nelson's
diesel-powered Mercedes smells like peanuts, or French fries, or whatever
alternative fuel happens to be in his tank.
While Bono tries to change the world by hobnobbing with politicians and Sir Bob
Geldof plays host to his mega-benefit concerts, Willie Nelson has birthed his own
brand of alternative fuel. It is called, fittingly enough, BioWillie. And in
BioWillie, Mr. Nelson, 72, has blended two of his biggest concerns: his love of
family farmers and disdain for the Iraq war.
BioWillie is a type of biodiesel, a fuel that can be made from any number of crops
and run in a normal diesel engine. If it sounds like a joke, a number of
businesses, as well as city and state and county governments, have been switching
their transportation fleets to biodiesel blends over the last year. The rationale
is that it is a domestic fuel that can provide profit to farmers and that it will
help the environment, though environmentalists are not universally enthusiastic
about it.
"I knew we needed to have something that would keep us from being so dependent on
foreign oil, and when I heard about biodiesel, a light come on, and I said, 'Hey,
here's the future for the farmers, the future for the environment, the future for
the truckers," Mr. Nelson said in an interview this month. "It seems like that's
good for the whole world if we can start growing our own fuel instead of starting
wars over it."
In some ways, it is a return to the origins of the diesel engine; some of Rudolf
Diesel's first engines ran on peanut oil more than a century ago.
Last week, a cargo-loading company that operates in the Port of Seattle said that
to fuel its equipment next year it would purchase 800,000 gallons of biodiesel,
most of it a blend known as B20 that is 80 percent conventional diesel. As of late
September, Minnesota requires almost all diesel fuel sold in the state to be 2
percent biodiesel, and Cincinnati started using a 30 percent biodiesel blend, B30,
in its city buses because of concerns about fuel shortages after Hurricane
Katrina.
Biodiesel can cost as much as a $1 a gallon more than regular diesel when pure,
though it is typically sold as B20. Prices vary depending on volume and region,
and new tax incentives are aimed at closing the cost gap. BioWillie was selling
for $2.37 a gallon yesterday in Carl's Corner, Mr. Nelson's own truck stop in
Texas that serves as headquarters of his year-old company, Willie Nelson
BioDiesel. That was just 4 cents more than the conventional diesel selling at
another station nearby.
Mr. Nelson's BioWillie is aimed mostly at truckers and is usually sold as B20
(pure biodiesel can congeal in colder climates). BioWillie is currently sold at 13
gas stations and truck stops in four states (with Texas having the most), and it
fuels the buses and trucks for Mr. Nelson's tours.
If BioWillie demonstrates anything, it is that the combination of Middle East
wars, global warming and rising prices at the pump has led many people to offer
solutions to the world's energy's squeeze. Depending on whom you ask, cars will
someday run on hydrogen, electricity, natural gas or ethanol.
Mr. Nelson is making his bet on biodiesel.
"I don't like the war," he said in the interview. "In fact, I don't know if you
ever remember a couple years ago, it was Christmas day, and my son Lukas was born
on Christmas Day, he's like 16 years old, and we were watching TV and there was
just all kind of hell breaking loose and people getting killed and I was talking
to my wife, Annie, and I said, You know, all the mothers crying and the babies
dying and she said, 'Well, you ought to go write that.' "So I wrote a song called
'Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?' "
He began to recite the first verse:
So many things going on in the world,
Babies dying, mothers crying.
Just how much oil is human life worth?
And whatever happened to peace on earth?
"That upset a lot of people, as you can imagine," he continued. "I've been upset
about this war from the beginning and I've known it's all about oil."
Every alternative to oil, however, has its drawbacks. Biodiesel would reduce most
emissions of smog-forming pollutants and global warming gases, and it could be
used instead of foreign oil. But some studies show that it increases emissions of
one harmful pollutant, nitrogen oxide, and it could not be produced in vast enough
quantities to supplant oil-based fuel, or come close to it, unless the nation
starts turning the suburbs over to farmland. And as with ethanol, producing great
quantities of biodiesel from corn or soybeans could drive up food prices.
Bill Reinert, Toyota's national manager for advanced technologies, said in an
interview this year: "I frankly don't see biodiesel being an early alt-fuel player
across a wide swath of geography. It's a boutique fuel. There's not enough payoff
and not enough people into it."
Peter J. Bell, the chief executive of Distribution Drive, a distributor of
biodiesel that is working with Mr. Nelson, said of the nation's nearly 200,000 gas
stations, "650 carry biodiesel, so we have a job in front of us." Mr. Nelson sits
on the board of Distribution Drive's parent, Earth Biofuels, a publicly traded
company.
Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club's top global warming expert, said he would prefer
to see wider use of a cleaner alternative fuel, like natural gas.
Referring to biodiesel, he said, "In order to grow soybeans, you need multiple
passes over the field with diesel tractors, you need a lot of fertilizer that's
energy intensive to produce and, at the end of the day, you have a product that is
no boon for the environment."
He went on: "If you're going to go to the trouble of using an alternative fuel,
use a good alternative fuel. If you really want to listen to Willie Nelson, go buy
one of his records and play it in a hybrid."
Mr. Nelson first heard about biodiesel two years ago from his wife while they were
staying in Hawaii. He recounted the story.
"My wife came to me and said 'I want to buy this car that runs on biodiesel, and I
said, 'What's that?' And so she told me, and I thought it was a scam or joke or
something. So I said, 'Go ahead, it's your money.' "
She bought a Volkswagen Jetta with a diesel engine and started filling it with
fuel made from restaurant grease. This is not uncommon. Home hobbyists make their
own biodiesel by collecting used grease from restaurants and chemically treating
it to turn it into usable fuel, or by outfitting their car or truck with equipment
to re-form the grease.
"I drove the car, loved the way it drove," Mr. Nelson said. "The tailpipe smells
like French fries. I bought me a Mercedes, and the Mercedes people were a little
nervous when I took a brand new Mercedes over and filled it up with 100 percent
vegetable oil coming from the grease traps of Maui. I figured I'd be getting
notices about the warranty and that stuff. However, nobody said anything."
"I get better gas mileage, it runs better, the motor runs cleaner, so I swear by
it," he added.
How far does he think biodiesel can go?
"It could get as big as we can grow fuel or find different things to make fuel
from, such as chicken fat, beef fat, add that along to soybeans, vegetable oils,
peanuts, safflower, sunflower," Mr. Nelson said.
O.K.. What about hemp?
"Hemp is a very good one," he replied, not missing a beat. "In fact, several years
ago, a friend of mine named Gatewood Galbraith was running for governor of
Kentucky and we campaigned all over the state of Kentucky in a Cadillac operating
on hemp oil. He was trying to get it legalized in the state of Kentucky and, of
course, he lost, but the cannabis thing in fuel is a very real thing."
Mr. Nelson said he did not expect to make much money on his venture. As he put it
when asked about his Mercedes, "I didn't get it selling BioWillie, I'll tell you."
"I hope somebody makes money out of it; I'm sure they will. And probably what'll
happen is that the oil industry will wait until everybody else builds all the
infrastructure and then they'll come in and take over," he said. "But that's O.K.
I don't worry about that. As along as the idea progresses because all I'm caring
about is getting it out there and maybe helping the country, the farmer, the
environment."
Asked if he intended to become a fat cat C.E.O. with a big cigar in his mouth, he
replied: "I'll give you my part of it. I'll just sign over all my earnings and
belongings to you right now and I'll sing 'Whiskey River.' "
One thing is certain: if Mr. Nelson's venture makes any money, none of it will go
to pay a $16 million tax bill to the Internal Revenue Service. That debt, which
arose from Mr. Nelson's participation in illegal tax shelters, was erased in 1993
with surrender of some property and the profit from his album "The IRS Tapes:
Who'll Buy My Memories?"
Copyright 2005 The New York Times
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
- From: BobG
- Re: Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
- Prev by Date: Re: Estimation of CO2 emissions with first full charge of EV.
- Next by Date: Re: Estimation of CO2 emissions with first full charge of EV.
- Previous by thread: Estimation of CO2 emissions with first full charge of EV.
- Next by thread: Re: Willie Nelson Sells Biodiesel
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
