October 17, 2005
Next: Early adopter | Joel Glatz, vice president, Frontier Energy, South China
By Lor Smith
Just a few years ago, the idea of using vegetable oil to run a vehicle or heat a home wasn't exactly widely embraced. Sure, there were the occasional cocktail-party stories about some guy whose Volkswagen ran on French fry grease. But the naysayers had a good point: Who really wants to spend their weekends hitting up burger joints for used oil just to save a few bucks at the gas pump?
But in 2001, when the naysayers loomed large, Joel Glatz ˆ an oil industry veteran ˆ was willing to take a contrarian position. Glatz, 46, bet that potential biofuel customers weren't just hardcore environmentalists or quirky auto owners content to toodle along trailed by a lingering aroma of tater tots. Glatz, vice president of 22-year-old Frontier Oil in South China, figured that more than a few of his company's home heating oil customers would be interested in trading 100% petroleum for a mix of petroleum and biofuel ˆ a product that burns cleaner than traditional heating oil, doesn't require any new equipment and is less toxic than traditional petroleum products. "It was obvious to us," says Glatz. "The market was going to increase for that type of thing."
So Glatz in 2002 formed a new company to handle the company's biofuel accounts. Frontier Energy, he says, became the first oil heat dealer in the country to offer home heating oil blended with biofuel for residential use. Though he declines to disclose details, Glatz during each of the past three years has seen the company's customer base double. (Frontier Energy delivers to the Augusta and Waterville areas and as far south as Richmond; Glatz's brother, Garry, runs Independence Fuel out of Durham and delivers Frontier Energy's biofuel as far south as Biddeford.) Meanwhile, Glatz says he's devoting "better than half" of his time to growing Frontier Energy. "It's a proven technology that works," he says. "It's a viable alternative that doesn't require any retrofitting or modifications to your equipment. It just seems like a no brainer."
Glatz's initial bet turned out to be a smart one: In addition to Frontier Energy's growing customer base, Glatz's work making biofuel available to residential and wholesale customers has helped raise the profile of biofuel in general. Because of that availability, there have been a number of well-publicized conversions in recent years ˆ something more Maine businesses ought to consider. L.L. Bean in 2003, for example, decided to fuel a number of its trucks with a blend of diesel and biofuel and worked out a deal with Glatz to locate a 1,000-gallon bio-diesel tank at its Freeport headquarters. This summer, Old Port Marine, a Portland-based charter company, used biodiesel from Independence Fuel to power two of its sightseeing boats. And last year, the Maine Division of Purchases ordered 266,000 gallons of B-10 ˆ a mix of 10% biofuel and 90% heating oil ˆ to heat 20 state office buildings including the Blaine House, where Gov. John Baldacci resides.
The increasing visibility of biofuel, not to mention the narrowing of the price gap between petroleum products and biofuel, will be instrumental in attracting a wider audience to the biofuel market, says Glatz. Home heating oil a year ago cost 30 cents less per gallon than a 20% biofuel blend, according to Glatz, but that price differential is now closer to 10 cents. "Originally, it was marketed as a 'green' product," says Glatz, referring to the attractiveness of biofuel to environmentalists and their ilk. But Glatz sees biofuel going beyond the green market and toward what he calls the "red, white and blue" market of the average American consumer. "Whichever end of the spectrum you're on politically," he says, "sourcing less of our fuel requirements from away is something that everybody can get behind."
But in 2001, when the naysayers loomed large, Joel Glatz ˆ an oil industry veteran ˆ was willing to take a contrarian position. Glatz, 46, bet that potential biofuel customers weren't just hardcore environmentalists or quirky auto owners content to toodle along trailed by a lingering aroma of tater tots. Glatz, vice president of 22-year-old Frontier Oil in South China, figured that more than a few of his company's home heating oil customers would be interested in trading 100% petroleum for a mix of petroleum and biofuel ˆ a product that burns cleaner than traditional heating oil, doesn't require any new equipment and is less toxic than traditional petroleum products. "It was obvious to us," says Glatz. "The market was going to increase for that type of thing."
So Glatz in 2002 formed a new company to handle the company's biofuel accounts. Frontier Energy, he says, became the first oil heat dealer in the country to offer home heating oil blended with biofuel for residential use. Though he declines to disclose details, Glatz during each of the past three years has seen the company's customer base double. (Frontier Energy delivers to the Augusta and Waterville areas and as far south as Richmond; Glatz's brother, Garry, runs Independence Fuel out of Durham and delivers Frontier Energy's biofuel as far south as Biddeford.) Meanwhile, Glatz says he's devoting "better than half" of his time to growing Frontier Energy. "It's a proven technology that works," he says. "It's a viable alternative that doesn't require any retrofitting or modifications to your equipment. It just seems like a no brainer."
Glatz's initial bet turned out to be a smart one: In addition to Frontier Energy's growing customer base, Glatz's work making biofuel available to residential and wholesale customers has helped raise the profile of biofuel in general. Because of that availability, there have been a number of well-publicized conversions in recent years ˆ something more Maine businesses ought to consider. L.L. Bean in 2003, for example, decided to fuel a number of its trucks with a blend of diesel and biofuel and worked out a deal with Glatz to locate a 1,000-gallon bio-diesel tank at its Freeport headquarters. This summer, Old Port Marine, a Portland-based charter company, used biodiesel from Independence Fuel to power two of its sightseeing boats. And last year, the Maine Division of Purchases ordered 266,000 gallons of B-10 ˆ a mix of 10% biofuel and 90% heating oil ˆ to heat 20 state office buildings including the Blaine House, where Gov. John Baldacci resides.
The increasing visibility of biofuel, not to mention the narrowing of the price gap between petroleum products and biofuel, will be instrumental in attracting a wider audience to the biofuel market, says Glatz. Home heating oil a year ago cost 30 cents less per gallon than a 20% biofuel blend, according to Glatz, but that price differential is now closer to 10 cents. "Originally, it was marketed as a 'green' product," says Glatz, referring to the attractiveness of biofuel to environmentalists and their ilk. But Glatz sees biofuel going beyond the green market and toward what he calls the "red, white and blue" market of the average American consumer. "Whichever end of the spectrum you're on politically," he says, "sourcing less of our fuel requirements from away is something that everybody can get behind."
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