Published: May 15, 2008 05:38 pm            

Evolution Biodiesel rethinking energy

Since December of 2006, Evolution Biodiesel, a business located in Huntsville, has been providing customers with diesel engines a way to make their own fuel with used vegetable oil.

“We found by researching on the Internet that diesel motors can be run on other fuels and one of those things is biodiesel. The need for a cleaner and economically viable fuel has never been more important,” said Amy Brossi, who co-owns the business with her husband, Kevin Shafer.

Evolution Biodiesel manufactures various kits that can be purchased and used to make the fuel. They manufacture kits having a 230-gallon biodiesel production capacity to a 24-gallon model. They even have custom-made kits for customers needing bigger processors.

In a seemingly small space to have a manufacturing plant, the Shafers have tripled their sales in two years. They have sold to customers in Europe, Canada, every state in the U.S. and some places in the Caribbean.

“Most of our customers are small business owners, farmers and people trying to be a bit more environmentally friendly in terms of their energy sources,” said Brossi. She said more small business owners have ordered kits in the past few months.

They designed the kits they sell, and also build them on-site, from the cutting of the metal, welding, painting and assembling.

The company truck, Brossi’s Volkswagen Jetta and a Mercedes they own all run on biodiesel.

“If you already have a diesel motor, it’s real easy to use biodiesel; there’s no conversion or anything,” said Brossi.

They collect used vegetable oil from local businesses and restaurants and have even picked up some at the recycling center to make their fuel.

“There’s literally millions of gallons of waste oil and it’s not getting used,” said Brossi.

She said recycling the used oil is a great thing for a small town to do because fast food places aren’t going away.

“It’s essentially waste being turned into fuel,” she said.

While the use of biofuels has taken a lot of heat and blame in recent weeks for the rising cost of food, in a press release from the National Biodiesel Board, the Energy Information Association (EIA) stated in a report the spot price for a barrel of crude oil has increased by 53 percent over the past year.

“Rising energy costs increase agricultural production input costs and increase the cost of transporting commodities to market. These costs get passed on to consumers in the form of increased food prices,” said the NBB.

When friends learned about the couple wanting to start the business, they told them it would never work. There are other biodiesel kits being manufactured by other businesses, but they’ve taken the process and added other features to help the customer out. The processors Evolution Biodiesel have manufactured feature a nozzle where consumers could actually have the processor in their garage and fill up their vehicle from there.

“We’re showing everybody that it worked,” said Brossi. She said the whole biofuel industry is growing.

Evolution Biodiesel is outgrowing its current location and ready to expand on property near Brossi and Shafer’s home. The new headquarters will be a sustainable building complete with a wind turbine, solar panels, biodiesel generators, rainwater catchment devices and composting toilets, all in an effort to be environmentally friendly. The Environmental Protection Agency defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

“We’re tripping over each other in here. We hope our new building will be a model of what a sustainable manufacturing company can be,” said Brossi.

The company is going to be featured in an episode of Battleground Earth, a new series on Planet Green, the first and only 24-hour eco-lifestyle television network from the Discovery Channel. Planet Green will launch in June 2008 reaching 50 million homes with more than 250 hours of original green lifestyle programming.

“They called me and said they wanted to use some of our kits for a show and I told them to keep talking,” said Brossi with a laugh. The episode will air in August.

Gas prices are on the rise daily and they are predicted to go higher as the summer months approach. The EIA stated in its weekly newsletter the U.S. average price for regular gasoline set yet another all-time high of $3.61 per gallon this week. If you are an owner of a diesel-powered vehicle, you pay over $4 a gallon in some areas.

The rising cost of fuel has vehicle manufacturers scrambling for more economical solutions to the crisis. Hybrid vehicles are catching on with hybrid sales at an all-time high. What was once quirky and not expected to catch on with consumers now leaves all vehicle manufacturers adding hybrids to their lineups.

One of Evolution Biodiesel’s missions is to help educate people about biodiesel. “We don’t live in a sustainable society,” said Brossi. She said biodiesel is a cleaner fuel, it’s renewable and it’s biodegradable.

For more information about Evolution Biodiesel, contact them at www.evolutionbiodiesel kits.com. The company is always looking for used vegetable oil, too. If you have any to dispose of, you can contact them at (281) 652-5716 ext. 4.

        

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