Case Studies: Green Technologies, LLC
Scott Gordon
Green Technologies, LLC
Winooski, Vermont
Scott Gordon is part of a new breed he calls "green collar workers". He founded Green Technologies after leaving the University of Vermont's Chemistry Department, where he studied and taught "green chemistry" (a field that looks at using "chemical building blocks" in a sustainable manner). Since Green Technologies inception two years ago, Scott has regarded his business as an experiment to demonstrate that sustainable businesses can survive in a world of declining resources.
While still at UVM, Scott was approached by a student (John Orr) about making biodiesel, and he decided to make it the subject of a lab sequence project. The project was successful and demonstrated to its participants that biodiesel is not difficult to make. John graduated and went on to start Long Trail Biofuels, and Scott got Green Technologies underway. The two maintained contact and in 2004, John and Scott combined their expertise to build the prototype for a 60,000-gallon reactor. At the time of this interview (mid 2005), they've nearly completed construction and are "limping into production". After 3 months, they were up to 600 gallons per month and looking forward to reaching 700 to 800 gallons per week very soon. The plant itself is designed to have an annual capacity of 100,000 gallons.
Green Technologies has relied entirely on waste vegetable oil (WVO) from thirty area restaurants (1200 gallons per month) for their feedstock. In order to reach capacity, it will need other supplies of waste oil to augment what's available now. So far, restaurants have been paying the company a small fee to pick up the WVO that is then stored in 50 gallon barrels. Scott is running one of the trucks used to haul the waste oil with a B30 blend.
Scott anticipates that he will need larger and more secure suppliers of WVO in place for full production or purchase oil from a sustainable feedstock source (e.g., algae, virgin seed oil or WVO) as the business grows. As is the case with other producers who are dependent upon cheap (or even free) WVO to make their biodiesel, he's aware that supply from those sources will inevitably decrease as demand rises.
Scott's motivations to develop his business model are manifold. He believes that biodiesel is the "green technology du jour" and that his market timing is perfect. Green Technologies is able to make a profit when it sells B100 for $2.25 a gallon. Since his product is sold for off-road use only, Scott's customers include farmers and growers using it in their tractors, operators of construction and heavy equipment vehicles, and homeowners buying it in the winter to combine with No. 2 heating oil. Initially Scott thought biodiesel would be a specialty product, but now, two years into it, he sees it becoming mainstreamed pretty quickly due to the rising interest in renewables and cleaner emissions. Another positive point is that biodiesel can readily fit in with the infrastructure already in place for petrodiesel.
One of Scott's hopes is that out of his investment in growing Green Technologies, there will emerge a cooperative model. Right now there are a number of separate entities trying to pull together their own operations and each would benefit by more networking between them.
Among the obstacles he's encountered in building a business around small-scale production of biodiesel, Scott cites a tax bond that must be paid up front before producing and selling the product, and the expense of gaining access to EPA Tier I and Tier II testing certification (necessary if he wants to sell to the on-road market). ASTM (quality standard) requirements are also quite expensive.
Scott's attended many Vermont Biofuels Association meetings, a few biodiesel-related events, and frequently speaks informally about biodiesel as an emerging and very promising aspect of the movement towards renewables. He believes education for the end user is seriously lacking, with many still unaware that biodiesel can be used anywhere that petrodiesel is used, without any major conversions. Scott is very focused about the way Green Technologies approaches each step, and the question of using a sustainable feedstock is key. In this new model of how to conduct business responsibly, Scott points out, "The ends actually do not justify the means, the means are every bit as important."