Santa Cruz Biofuel Station Reopens
B99 ‘gourmet fuel’ is 100 percent recycled
Story by Molly Zapp
The faces are familiar, the signs are the same and the slightly sweet scent of french fried fuel lingers in the air at the new biodiesel station at Soquel and Ocean. Where the defunct Pacific Biofuel once stood is the newly conceived Green Station, which quietly began selling small amounts of the cleaner-burning fuel in July.
“B99 still lives in Santa Cruz,” says Ray Newkirk, the former president of PacFuel and the most visible biodiesel activist in Santa Cruz. Still chatting with customers and fueling the revolution, Newkirk eschews a manager label at the new station and instead calls himself “the only guy working here now–I'm the green grunt.”
According to Newkirk, an anonymous former PacFuel customer purchased the pumps and the first shipment of biodiesel for the Green Station. The station's current fuel supply was produced in Gonzales and is completely recycled, whereas PacFuel's biodiesel came from a blend of recycled and virgin sources. Pending City Council approval, the Green Station intends to sell electric cars as early as September, and currently also rents U-Hauls.
But the changes and consistencies between the former and current stations do not completely mirror the biodiesel vision that Newkirk expressed when PacFuel shut down. In June, Newkirk hoped to “sidestep the whole economic structure” by replacing the failed commercial station with a member owned cooperative. But plans for a coop were scrapped when that option was deemed unfeasible. The Green Station is completely retail.
“We're trying to make a living here, too, where we need to do a retail sale to stay open, and that doesn't let itself to a coop very well,” Newkirk now says. He says that it would be too complicated balancing the retail part of car sales, U-Haul rentals and the selling of biodiesel. “It's kind of a big mess, and we're trying to avoid any more messes,” he adds with a sigh.
A gallon of biodiesel sells for $5.79, up from $4.99 when PacFuel closed in May. Newkirk attributes the elevation in cost to both “the rising cost of everything” and an increased fuel markup to 50 cents per gallon, about a quarter more than the ultimately unsustainable markup at PacFuel.
“It's like gourmet fuel,” says Jess Burg, a biodiesel advocate who works for Newkirk's separate carpentry business and helps out around the Green Station. “There's a finite amount (of biodiesel). This you can only get certain places,” Burg says.
“I try not to look at the price,” says Sarah Leonard, who has filled up her Dodge truck and Volkswagon TDI at the old and new biodiesel stations. “We're all doing what we can for the green movement and try to make alternatives mainstream.”
Lest anyone decide that the biodiesel retailers have sold out or cashed in, Newkirk reiterates his starving activist cred. “I'm still not getting paid,” he says.
