Even in a community as amenable to progressive values as Berkeley, there are few small businesses so powered by idealism as BioFuel Oasis, which this month is celebrating its eighth birthday.

An environmentalist mainstay since 2003, the company specializes in the sale of biodiesel fuel chemically rendered from recycled vegetable oil, and shipped in from an off-site manufacturer.

Since moving to its current location at 1441 Ashby Avenue, the company has diversified its product line to include urban farming materials such as organic chicken feed and beekeeping supplies, as well as teaching classes in DIY practices like beekeeping and home fermentation. Its clientele has swelled from a few environmentally conscious Berkeley residents to a loyal, 3,000-strong customer base.

As an all female/worker-run business geared entirely towards providing local residents with clean-fuel solutions and encouraging urban farming, to say that BioFuel Oasis is a unique exercise in entrepreneurism would be an understatement.

One could rightly say that the five owner-employees who make up the company’s staff are activists first and businesswomen second. They are: Margaret Farrow, Ace Anderson, Melissa Hardy, Jennifer Radtke, and noted author Novella Carpenter.

“We started selling biodiesel out of a little warehouse in west Berkeley,” said co-founder and co-owner Jennifer Radtke. “No one in Northern California was making biodiesel when we started. And so because of us and our distribution center, there are now places around here making it.”

The company’s main supplier is Yokayo Biofuels in Ukiah, CA which collects vegetable oil for rendering from the East Bay, and then drives it to Berkeley in trucks run on biodiesel. “We kind of created this community end-market,” said Radtke. “The Ukiah station was around when we started, but they were just distributing. Their goal was always to manufacture it, but there need to be enough people to buy it.”

BioFuel Oasis is at 1441 Ashby Avenue at Sacramento

BioFuels has also helped other stations get off the ground. For instance it advised San Francisco’s Dogpatch Biofuels, and supported them when they were getting started. “Now, we have this Northern Californian network of people who are doing biodiesel,” said Radtke. “We have co-created this whole local industry of getting your fuel from a recycled product. It’s sort of like the local food movement, but local fuel.”

One of the most impressive aspects of BioFuels is that it is partially funded through community donations. Aside from a small loan from the City of Berkeley, it has never taken capital from a bank or investment firm. “Instead, we made money in different creative ways, through events and from our customers donating,and having people pre-pay for fuel,” said Radtke who adds that they have raised $30,000 in that way.

But, as with any grassroots organization, not everything has been smooth sailing. Radtke said there had been some permitting hiccups with the Berkeley when they decided to relocate from west Berkeley, due to the city’s unfamiliarity with biofuel regulations. And, even among their customers, there has been some blowback, even subtle sexism, as the community learns to accept an all-female staff in a niche market for specialized urban farming equipment.

“We answer a lot of technical questions, about cars or beekeeping or chicken feed. And that’s not something traditionally that women are expected to do, you know?” she said. “The marketplace can be kind of an antagonistic place. It’s an educational thing about gender and women having technical knowledge. What happens sometimes is customers will ask another customer who is a guy a technical question, and the guy will say, ‘They know a lot more than I do’ and point to us.”

But Radtke is quick to point out that the very existence of BioFuel Oasis is a testament to the support of the local community, and the strength of its environmentalist values. “We’re very aware of the role of Berkeley in our success. There are a lot of people here for whom this is their lifestyle, to grow their own food in their backyard, to run their vehicle on a non-petroleum fuel. We have been cheered on by them.”

Bio-diesel is non-toxic — you can even drink it, although nobody at Biofuel Oasis is recommending it

As far as Radtke and her co-workers are concerned, bio-diesel is a transitional fuel. “People ask us what we are transitioning to, and the answer is ‘walking and riding your bike’,” she said.

Biofuel normally costs about $0.50-$1.00 more per gallon than standard gasoline, and having it at a higher price encourages driving less, Radtke said.

“But if you do have to drive, biofuel is made from a recycled product, made locally. All your money is going to businesses that aren’t in the petroleum industry. And that’s not true of all the bio-diesel sold in this country. But for us it is, because we’ve developed those community relationships.

“Bio-diesel is carbon-neutral, and also non-toxic and non-flammable. It’s a lot like vegetable oil. You can even drink it, though I wouldn’t recommend it. When we had our grand opening here, we all did a little toast of bio-diesel. It’s not toxic, but it also doesn’t taste very good.”

The toast that Radtke and her fellow co-owners celebrated at their recent eight-year anniversary party no doubt tasted much sweeter. When asked what this anniversary represents to the company, Radtke responded: “In the beginning I thought we’d be out of business within two years. And so it’s beyond my wildest dreams, number one that we’d still be in business after eight years, and number two that we’d be thriving. But eight years. I guess if you turn it sideways it’s the infinity sign, so it means we’re gonna keep going.”

Biofuel Oasis evolved from the Berkeley Biodiesel Collective, an offshoot of the Ecology Center. The collective was formed on Sept. 11, 2002, in response to the 9/11 tragedy. To help reduce gasoline consumption, the collective taught people to brew fuel from used vegetable oil.

Why vegetable oil? Using biodiesel reduces dependence on foreign oil and the need to “drill, baby drill,” in the oceans, its supporters argue. The Environmental Protection Agency found that using biodiesel, rather than diesel or gasoline, significantly reduces greenhouse gases, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulfates, hydrocarbon and air toxics emissions. Biodiesel is non-toxic and virtually inflammable;it ignites at 350 degrees, compared to gasoline which can ignite at 43 degrees, so it can be stored above ground.

In 2003, collective members Jennifer Radtke and Sara Hope Smith decided to sell biodiesel directly to customers and opened Biofuel Oasis on Fourth Street in Berkeley. In May 2009 the Oasis moved to its present location on Ashby Street.

Melissa Hardy of Oakland has been with the Oasis since the beginning.

“Our goals are to keep nurturing the seeds we’ve sown and to become a community hub for urban farming,” explained Hardy. “We want to keep providing sustainable fuels and enabling the community to localize their lifestyles in the Bay.”

Biofuel Oasis members live the buy-local credo. They buy biodiesel from Yokayo Biofuels in Ukiah, Calif., about 125 miles from Berkeley, and Bentley BioFuels in Minden, Nevada, about 200 miles away.

Yokayo collects used vegetable oil from hundreds of local restaurants and removes the glycerin in the oil through a process called transesterification. The thinner oil is capable of powering a diesel engine with no or few modifications. Biodiesel can also be blended with petroleum diesel directly in the tank if biodiesel is unavailable.

(Ironically, emissions-reducing technology found in diesel engines made after 2007 may exclude these cars from using biodiesel.)

Biofuel Oasis only sells fuel processed from recycled vegetable oil. Hardy explained that biodiesel made from virgin agricultural oils has a larger environmental impact because it displaces food crops, adds to problems of industrial agriculture and is often shipped from overseas. The Oasis has an oil dumpster where people can drop off their used cooking oil. Each week, Yokayo vacuums it up on its rounds. Biodiesel at the Oasis currently sells for $3.84 per gallon.

The demand for urban farming education and supplies are growing at the Oasis, Hardy said. Novella Carpenter, author of “Farm City,” is one of the group’s owner-workers and, of course, its resident goat expert. Customers can buy organic chicken feed, straw bales, beekeeping supplies, worms and organic plant starts in Berkeley rather than driving to farm stores many miles away.

Workshops are welcome to all; many class participants haven’t taken the step to become biodiesel users. Hardy said that, as people learn new skills, such as how to cure olives, they gain confidence and take more classes to find out how to produce more of their own food.

Biofuel Oasis is an active member of the Network of Bay Area Cooperatives, an organization dedicated to building democratic workplaces. It provides support and resources for cooperatives, from organizational and technical help, to ideas about developing group benefits and mediation.

The five women owners work part-time shifts that allow them to pursue other interests. The Oasis has recently introduced a membership card for customers, so they can fill up even when the station is closed.

Last year, Biofuel Oasis won an Eileen Fisher Business Program for Women Entrepreneurs grant for $10,000. The group just returned from three days in New York to meet the other four awardees and the Eileen Fisher committee. Hardy said it was inspiring to get to know such generous, successful business owners.

“We can’t wait until the day when we are big enough to pay it forward to other small businesses through a charitable program,” she said.

Biofuel Oasis is located at 1441 Ashby Ave. in Berkeley. It has a new station at 14 Greenfield Ave. in San Anselmo.

Regular station hours: Monday to Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Freedom Fueling Hours: Monday to Sunday, 7 a.m. to midnight

Call 510-665-5509 or e-mail *protected email* for more information.

To learn more about Biofuel Oasis and workshops, click here.

For more information on cars that can safely use biodiesel fuel and other questions, click here.

To find out what you can do to help make new diesel vehicles be made biodiesel-compatible, click here.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inoakland/detail?&entry_id=62770#ixzz0pYJiniRA

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inoakland/detail?&entry_id=62770#ixzz0pYJPVw9a

Mother’s Day this year was a bit atypical. My interest in urban farming had peaked with the possibility of raising goats in my Oakland backyard and I needed a dose of reality. So instead of brunching with Mom I spent the morning learning about goat husbandry in an Urban Goats 101 class at the BioFuel Oasis.

The BioFuel Oasis is worker-owned cooperative in Berkeley specializing in ASTM quality biodiesel made from recycled vegetable oil. In addition to supplying biofuel, they offer urban farming classes in Beekeeping, Raising Chickens & Ducks, Basic Vegetable Fermentation, Raising Milking Goats and other DIY pursuits.

Novella Carpenter, an Oakland based urban farmer (Ghost Town Farm), and worker/owner at BioFuel Oasis, and author of Farm City:The Education of An Urban Farmer, teaches like she writes. Her casual yet methodical approach contains hints of dark humor sprinkled lightly with four letter words. Learning to raise goats in the ghetto had been an iterative process — there was no definitive “urban goat manual” and the lessons learned from owning other city farm animals (chickens, ducks, turkeys, rabbit, pigs) didn’t necessarily translate. Throughout the class Novella shared her methodology along with lists of essential information to raise milking goats in an urban environment. Clearly the need for guidance in urban farming provided inspiration for teaching this class and writing the much needed general manual, The Essential Urban Farmer, Novella’s forthcoming book.

I love a good class handout and Novella’s 8-page Goat 101 packet was extremely informative and well-organized. It opened with this sobering statement:

Warning: No one should enter into goat husbandry without full knowledge that goat ownership is an all-engrossing hobby that will suck up your time and money.
She covered legal issues; dispelled goat myths; described different types and breeds of goats; provided a list of essential housing and caretaking necessities; and shared how to buy, breed, and milk goats.

Here are some goaty reality factors that might stop you from responding to a Craigslist ad on a whim:
To keep milking goats lactating they need to be bred annually. So, that means you are also a goat breeder and need to deal with stud services, birthing and (goat) kids.
Male goats stink and it is illegal to own them in Berkeley. If your goat gives birth to a male kid you will need to have a plan how to deal with him. Selling, giving away or eating are your basic options.
Goats don’t like to be alone so you need to have at least two females, ideally three. (Berkeley law allows only two female goats per household. Oakland law was only specific about goats not being raised on properties occupied by apartments, hotels or in a business district. San Francisco law was only specific about goats not being used for animal sacrifice but did cite a limitation of four small animals total.)
Dogs and goats are natural enemies (however, goats and chickens are compatible)
“Goats are not lawnmowers. Many a person has been disappointed when they brought their goats home and expected them to trim the grass, and instead the goats denuded the shrubs and trees first….But the main feed for your goat should always be hay.”
Be prepared to spend $500-600 for a good quality milking doe.

After the didactic lecture plus Q&A we moved into the experiential goat-handling portion of the class. Blue-eyed Milky Way and bearded Orla May entered the space and brushing and hoof trimming was demonstrated and practiced. Novella went through the motions of demonstrating milking technique but her milker goat Bebe was off getting “freshened” so she was not available for an actual milking demo. That was my only disappointment. I was hoping to witness actual goat milking and possibly have a hands-on experience and tasting. However, taking photos and interacting with these unfamiliar and extremely cute creatures was quite a thrill.

The folks attending the class ranged from goat owners to goat-curious. The class was 3 hours long, cost $30 and was kept to a comfortable size so all participants wanting to handle the goats had easy access. Novella brought samples of her own GhostTown Farm goat cheese for tasting and briefly discussed goat milk products. A great class to follow this general introduction would be “How-To make Goat Milk Cheese, Yogurt and Kefir.”

Novella will be teaching this class again on Sunday, June 20th from 9:30am to 12:30pm. It will be taught at a house with a backyard so there is more natural space for the goats to wander around. If you are even slightly goat-curious I recommend attending, but register ASAP because her classes sell out quickly.

— Mix the troubled economy with the desire to eat healthy food – and what do you get? A backyard turned into a barnyard. Here’s a look at the growing world of urban farming. The farm is a small backyard behind a pink house. It’s across the street from an abandoned building, just a few blocks from Downtown Oakland. There are rabbits living on the front deck, chickens patrolling the side yard and a big vegetable garden growing in the empty lot next door. Novella Carpenter is the farmer.

“When I am ready to make dinner, I can just sort of come down here, pick stuff, eat whatever is in season or whatever I find. I just feel healthier doing that and the food tastes really good too,” she said.

About half of the food Novella eats comes from her urban farm. She even shares with her neighbors. Raymond Jackson has lived in the neighborhood for years and this is the first farm he’s ever seen here.

Watch the News Story here

“Wonderful, tremendous, it’s just like a little piece of heaven,” he said.

The goats seem to agree.

“They love to climb up and down these back stairs because it’s sort of like a little mountainside for them,” said Novella.

They are Nigerian Dwarf goats. They only grow to about two feet tall and they don’t require fancy accommodations.

“They are kind of like cats, they are independent, but then they want you to scratch them and they want to sit on your lap and hang out too,” said Novella.

And most importantly, they produce creamy delicious milk. Novella milks them in a little room behind her kitchen. A goat named Bebe produces about a quart a day.

The rules about urban farms vary widely from city to city. In Oakland, there are restrictions on the number of animals. Chickens are allowed, but no roosters.

Generally, Novella says you can raise what you want as long as neighbors don’t complain.

“With the recession happening, more and more people are getting interested in urban farming,” she said.

No one knows exactly how many urban farms there are in the Bay Area, but there is a growing market for supplies.

The BioFuel Oasis in Berkeley is doing a brisk business in hay bales, animal feed, salt licks — things that used to be sold only in farm areas.

Sarah Barengo shops there for chicken feed.

“We’ve driven to Petaluma too get it, so it’s definitely more convenient here,” she said.

The store offers classes and advice on many farm related activities.

“A lot of people that are doing urban farming are also interested in canning, so we have mason jars and books on canning,” said Jennifer Radtke from BioFuel Oasis

And there’s a huge array of books on other aspects of farming. Novella has written one about how she turned her urban wasteland into a city farm.

She says people may try farming to save money, but it’s a lot of work and you better love it or it won’t last.

“When you are in front of a computer all day and you are just on the phone and you don’t have any contact with the natural world, urban farming is a really great way to have contact with animals and insects and plant life, and it’s a great way to feel alive,” said Novella.

Many of us try to do our part for the environment: we recycle, bike to work, or buy eco friendly cleaners. The ladies of Biofuel Oasis, however, have gone beyond what most of us would ever dream of trying in their war against pollution. Melissa Hardy, Margaret Farrow, Ace Anderson, Novella Carpenter, and Jennifer Radtke, (whose ages range from early 30′s to early 40′s) have dedicated their lives to the BioFuel Oasis, a Berkeley, CA-based alternative filling station that dispenses biodiesel, a non-toxic, renewable, biodegradable fuel source that may change the way America drives. “We’re total scrappers,” explains Hardy of their crusade. “We do this for the love in our hearts for this movement.”

Hardy met her future BioFuel buddies in 2003 while volunteering for a group dedicated to finding petroleum alternatives. The most promising of these options, biodiesel, is an animal fat or vegetable oil based fuel that can power engines currently running on standard petroleum diesel. There’s no need to modify most diesel engines (found in lots of ’70s-era cars and new models from manufacturers like VW, BMW, and Mercedes) to accept the fuel, and it can be mixed with petroleum inside the tank. “You can make biodiesel in your backyard,” Hardy says, ” which totally appeals to our DIY personalities.”

That year, the first incarnation of the BioFuel Oasis appeared in a warehouse. It stayed open until February 2009, when the group realized their true vision, moving their business into a 1930′s era filling station in Berkeley. To renovate the space, though, the ladies had to pony up $250,000 for contractors fees, permits, and other expenses. “We had no assets explains Hardy, “but we thought, ‘Our biggest resource is our community’. So we launched a program asking people to donate $100 each to ‘Become a Solutionary.’” BFO raised close to $40,000 this way, then pieced the rest together with government grants and loans. “It was a big move to become legit, but we were hella creative,” says Hardy.

The BFO’s pumps, which dispense biodiesel made from recycled cooking oil that their local suppliers collect from hundreds of restaurant fryers-are automated , but there are still ladies at the station six days a week doing mechanical work, dolling out car advice, and selling products like chicken feed, beekeeping supplies, and mason jars for canning, inside the BFO store. Life in coveralls isn’t always easy breezy, and many of the BFO’s have white collard jobs to augment their meager incomes from the station and make an hourly wage. “We work at a gas station and make an hourly wage,” explains Hardy.”But we’re lucky. Our customers are incredibly dedicated.” [Molly Sims]

The Biodevas / The Environmentalists

This spring, in the weeks before opening what they call the “most sustainable filling station in the nation,” the owners of Biofuel Oasis in Berkeley were smoothing gravel in trenches they had dug themselves. In one trench, they had laid pipe to carry the biodiesel—made from recycled cooking oil—from a storage tank to their station’s two new fuel pumps.

The term “sweat equity” certainly applies to the effort these eco-entrepreneurs have put into refurbishing a historic 1933 gas station on Ashby Avenue. Because their worker-owned collective has a limited budget, they have done much of the trench digging and other construction themselves.

“We learned to do all this crazy man stuff,” says Novella Carpenter, who, like her four sister “biodevas,” has a white-collar day job—she’s a journalist. (Their spelling of devas is a nod to forest spirits.) “We’re all in much better shape. We call it the Oasis gym.”

BioDevas

Literally building the business is one of the empowering aspects of this operation, which they know won’t make them rich. “It’s like growing your own food. It involves a lot of work, so it becomes more precious,” Carpenter says.

Biofuel Oasis started in 2003 in a warehouse off Fourth Street. Founder Jennifer Radtke and another woman, who has since left the business, wanted to provide greater access to biodiesel, an alternative fuel that is cleaner than diesel. The operation now has around 2,700 customers and the five biodevas: Carpenter and Radtke, as well as Margaret Farrow, Ace Anderson, and Melissa Hardy.

In addition to digging trenches, building canopies to shelter the fueling pumps, and having solar panels installed, the women also overhauled their building to accommodate a shop that sells biodiesel supplies, and an area where they can hold classes on alternative fuels and urban farming. The women’s prior DIY experience involved raising their own chickens, rabbits, and bees.

They envision becoming a hub for locals who want to explore green lifestyle alternatives. “Our

whole thing is to be a small business so we know our customers,” Carpenter says. “We want this building to be a community fabric that holds people together.”  —Martha Ross
This article appears in the May 2009 issue of Diablo Magazine

Last Thursday, The fabulous BioDevas of Berkeley’s BioFuel Oasis threw a fundraising Happy Hour at Trumer Pils Brewery to raise cash for their new biofuel station. (The Biofuel Oasis is a worker-owned & operated cooperative that resells ASTM quality biodiesel, specializing in biodiesel made from waste oil purchased from California plants whenever possible.)

Chez Panisse chefs (and biodiesel devotees) prepared the food, which included West-Oakland raised goat meat, uber-local produce, and artisan breads. Local foodies, sustainability freaks and clean-air heroes hobnobbed and noshed the night away. And most importantly, they brought their earthy ideology to the very clothes on their backs

Read the full article here:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/chronstyle/detail?blogid=51&entry_id=32236

We’re among others featured in this beautiful photo essay by Célia Pernot http://www.celiapernot.com/G_biodiesel/G_biodiesel_01.html

Austin Mader-Clark of Autopia Biofuels has teamed up with two other biodiesel station owners to promote the alternative fuel.

Austin Mader-Clark’s new fueling station and convenience store in San Mateo is in the red, yet she makes time to confer with her competition weekly. That collaboration is critical to the success of the fledgling industry, she said.

Three women-owned biodiesel stations — Mader-Clark’s Autopia Biofuels LLC, BioFuel Oasis Cooperative Inc. in Berkeley and Dogpatch Biofuels Cooperative Inc. in San Francisco — are establishing a consortium that could help them improve pricing, government regulation and public opinion.

“We see each other as infrastructure,” said Mader-Clark, who opened Autopia Biofuels in May. “If people aren’t using biodiesel, it can be hard to get them to start. But if they know biodiesel is available everywhere they go, more people will start using it.”

Michele Swiggers, co-owner of Dogpatch Biofuels, said she has never encountered this level of cooperation among competitors.

“It helps make everyone stronger,” she said.
Buying in bulk

In recent weeks, biodiesel has been priced competitively with petroleum-based diesel, both hovering between $5 and $6 per gallon. Customers have traditionally bought biodiesel for environmental reasons, but the price parity is expanding the market to first-time customers looking to save money, Mader-Clark said.

Autopia Biofuels sold 3,000 gallons in its first six weeks but will need to sell 10,000 a month to break even, Mader-Clark said. She added a convenience store with organic snacks and products to boost revenue.

Costs are high in the new industry because suppliers are facing start-up expenses, Mader-Clark said.

One of her suppliers charges $2,200 to deliver any amount of fuel, so local stations sharing shipments could mean lower prices for the consumer, she said.

Currently, there is only one government-approved fuel dispenser for pure biodiesel use, and it costs $11,000. The trio is trying to negotiate with a different manufacturer to obtain approval for a similar dispenser that costs less than $3,000.

“We approached the manufacturer and said, ‘There’s three of us in the Bay Area willing to buy your dispenser. Can you put money forward to do testing to get it certified?’” said Swiggers, whose station is still in the permitting process and is looking to buy two dispensers. “They were quite receptive.”

The stations also help each other navigate state and local agencies, said Melissa Hardy, one of the five worker-owners of BioFuel Oasis, which is moving to a bigger site in the fall.

“Dogpatch shared a lot with us about the building-permit process,” Hardy said. “We chose a lot of the things they used so no one’s reinventing the wheel.

Building an industry

The three stations sell biodiesel made from used cooking oil, which is chemically treated and filtered before use. Pure biodiesel is nonflammable and reduces harmful emissions of hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide.

Swiggers said many consumers confuse biodiesel with corn-based ethanol, which can negatively affect carbon emissions and the global food supply.

One of the first steps to establishing a market, she said, is explaining who can use the fuel.

Pure biodiesel can invalidate some vehicle warranties, but many vehicles built since 2000 don’t require modifications to use it. In older vehicles, its solvency can corrode rubber fuel lines and loosen deposits that clog filters. In cold weather, biodiesel can form wax crystals and reduce fuel economy.

Used cooking oil is one of the best fuels for the environment, but it’s on the fringe of the biofuel industry because many consumers don’t understand its benefits, said Jon Guice, head of research and co-founder of AltaTerra Ltd., a Palo Alto-based research firm focused on green business and cleantech.

Area biodiesel stations are more likely to build a market for their products if they consolidate efforts to educate consumers, Guice said.