Biofuels Sold Here

Chris Caseberg, owner of Arbor Biofuels, dispenses biofuels and conventional gasoline at her station off Northeast 76th Avenue. (Photos by Zachary Kaufman/The Columbian)

What first drove Chris Caseber to fuel her Volkswagen Jetta with biodiesel was an ethic — one she later combined with the entrepreneurship that prompted her to open Clark County’s first stations to pump new alternative fuels (as well as the old petroleum standards) with a good dose of old-fashioned service.

“I liked the fact that it was nonpolluting for the environment,” said the Vancouver woman, who didn’t like the fact that at the time she had to drive to Portland to fill up. “It was kind of a pain, so I began to keep a couple of five-gallon totes in my trunk.”

In that obstacle Caseber saw opportunity. In 2006, the former hair salon manager started her Arbor Biofuels distributorship and tried to market alternative fuels to local governments and school districts.

“We had a lot of interest and sold no fuel, because it was too new,” she said.

This September, she leased the former Scott Brothers locations in Five Corners and Battle Ground from the Groesbeck family and converted both sites into Arbor American Biofuels stations, where environmentally minded customers can fill up on fuels with up to 50 percent biodiesel in the winter and 99 percent biodiesel in the warmer months; nearly pure biodiesel can gel in cold weather. Additionally, she sells a “flex fuel” with 85 percent ethanol for gasoline engines converted to run on ethanol or gasoline.

Her original thought was to be Clark County’s first alternative fuel-only station — at least one local Shell station started pumping biodiesel before she opened — but she keeps selling familiar fossil fuels at competitive prices to the majority of her customers while acceptance for alternatives grows.

“My goal is to help people understand what it is,” she said.

Caseber, 58, also maintained Scott Brothers as full-service stations, which have become a rare breed on Washington’s self-serve landscape.

“We have disabled and elderly people who can’t get out of their vehicle to fuel, or people who just don’t want to have to get out of their cozy cars in stormy weather,” she said. Arbor employees wash windshields, refill window cleaner reservoirs and check tire pressures and oil levels.

She also runs her business with a community angle.

The fuel station business is notorious for stiff competition, small margins and wildly variable prices that have forced some out of business.

To make it so far, Caseber works long hours, receives plenty of “elbow grease” from family and friends and has backing from a private investor, she said. She is adding stores at each site — which will include organic and wholesome food alternatives as well as the typical junk-food station fare — and hopes to become profitable in about six months but needs more traffic at the quiet stations.

“People don’t know we’re here yet,” she said. “Even though it’s financially difficult, (selling this type of fuel) is the future.”

Caseber continues her distribution business while trying to woo fleet owners and other larger customers who can get tax benefits for switching to alternative fuels. She also maintains a home-heating oil business that Scott Brothers ran at Five Corners, which she sells at regular market prices while offering customers a biodiesel blend option.

Instead of refining crude oil, much of which is imported, biodiesel is made from plant oils such as soybeans and canola seeds, from animal fats, and even from waste cooking oil. It smells like vegetable oil in the kitchen, burns cleaner than crude and has natural lubricating and cleansing qualities that improve engine operation, she said. Its use also supports American farmers and promotes energy independence, she added.

Ethanol also is a biofuel, but it is an alcohol fuel distilled from the plants’ natural sugars. Unlike diesel engines, which need little if any special attention to switch to biodiesel, a more costly conversion is necessary for gasoline-powered cars to burn higher blends of ethanol, such as Arbor American’s E85.

Besides acceptance, the other problem alternative fuels have in gaining wider use is that going green costs quite a bit more green. Converting customers at the pump is even harder in tough economic times, particularly when traditional fuel prices have dropped so fast. For example, last month Arbor American Biofuels was selling B50 (50 percent biodiesel) for $3.99 per gallon, whereas her B5 (5 percent biodiesel) was competitively priced with nearby stations’ diesel prices at $2.55 per gallon.

Amber Thurlo Pearson, spokeswoman for the National Biodiesel Board, said the plummeting of prices at standard pumps “makes it a little bit more difficult for companies involved in biodiesel, but the industry has continued to grow despite that.”

In 2008, biodiesel producers sold about 200 million gallons more of their product than in the previous year, and environmental regulations will push use higher still in 2009, Pearson said. Nevertheless, 200 million gallons still is far less than the amount of traditional fuels Americans pump into their cars every day.

Caseber hopes that will change as increased production pushes down costs and environmental and tax laws begin to favor fuels that pollute less and promote energy independence. She believes Barack Obama’s administration might help the industry.

“I don’t want people to pass it up because it’s expensive,” Caseber said. “I shouldn’t ever have to be the gourmet of fuel.”

While Caseber buys her fuel from larger distributors, she dreams of working with partners or within a cooperative to set up a local biodiesel plant, perhaps in the old automotive garage at her Five Corners site. She already has some ties with Heritage High School Skills Center’s biodiesel program, which makes a modest amount of fuel for local use, and has hired a handful of its students.

Besides biodiesel and ethanol, Caseber is eager to offer additional fuel options as customers buy cleaner cars.

For example, she sees a day when she might offer charging stations for electric plug-in vehicles.

“This is such an exciting time to be involved in alternatives,” said Caseber, who has a small getaway in Mexico powered by solar energy.

“I want to know that I can make a difference in my little window that I have here. I want to be part of the change.”