One Year Later, NJ Company Calls Biodiesel “a Success”

Posted by Carol Sonenklar on December 18, 2009 at 3:59 pm

(image: woolleyfuel.com)

The first commercial service station in New Jersey to offer a biodiesel blend is celebrating its first anniversary, reports the Maplewood Patch.

“Running my car on Woolley’s fuel is no different than when I put regular diesel in it, except I get to feel good about filling up!” says Bear Schmidt, a longtime customer.

And Norm Woolley, Jr. is feeling pretty darned good as well. It’s been one year since the owner of Woolley’s Fuel made history as the first service station to sell biodiesel to the public in the state of New Jersey. He started with B5 biodiesel, a 5 percent blend of soy-based biodiesel with 95 percent conventional diesel fuel. To his surprise, however, customers kept requesting blends with a higher percentage of biodiesel. Right now, B30 (30 percent biodiesel, 70 percent conventional fuel) is the highest ratio blend the blending system can dispense.

“We are pleased that in one year demand has pushed the blending system to the max,” says Woolley.

Biodiesel contains almost no sulfur, and over the course of its production and use biodiesel emits 78 percent less carbon dioxide than conventional diesel. Conventional diesel engines don’t require any modifications to use biodiesel, which can be made from an ever-growing list of renewable resources such as soybeans, algae, jatropha plants, and many more.

And others have taken notice. In the year since Woolley pioneered the cleaner burning fuel, ten more companies have begun to offer the biodiesel blend. “It’s nice to be the first, but it’s also good to see that others are able to make a difference in different regions of the state,” said Woolley.

It was originally municipalities that were first interested in biodiesel. New Jersey’s Biodiesel Fuel Rebate Program provides rebates for the price-per-gallon difference between biodiesel and petroleum diesel, and is open to municipalities, counties, school boards and colleges. Woolley Fuels first began supplying biodiesel to the city’s bus fleet on a test basis; it passed with flying colors. “The use of biodiesel in our jitney buses is a success; Maplewood’s commitment to lowering our carbon footprint makes the use of this type of fuel a natural step in the process,” said Mayor Victor DeLuca.

And best of all, customer demand for the blend has increased Woolley’s sales 8 percent each month. He says that he wanted to start with a 5 percent blend to gauge customer enthusiasm. Soon, the public’s demand for higher biodiesel percentages confirmed his positive experiences with the fuel—and that the decision to offer biodiesel was the right one.

Woolley will soon be offering biofuel heating oil to his residential heating oil customers, and plans to have a 12,000 gallon storage tank of pure biodiesel for blending with diesel and heating oil. Since heating oil is chemically very similar to diesel, the introduction of biofuel heating oil into Woolley Fuel’s operations should go smoothly.