Comment Log Display

Members of the CARB Board of Directors,

My name is Jon Bauer, and I am one of the founders of the Berkeley
Biodiesel Collective.  I started this project as an offshoot of a
group of U.C. Berkeley students and employees who in the year 2000
began secretly making biodiesel in a homemade processor at U.C.
Berkeley to test in our vehicle.  As word of our new public
efforts spread, we quickly morphed into a very active, all
volunteer based organization that at various times worked on
biodiesel production, a bulk-purchasing coop, and classes,
presentations, and demonstrations.  Seven years later, we still do
free, monthly, public presentations that introduce people (to date,
thousands of people) to biodiesel and the local resources that
support it.  Our goal was simple: raise awareness about global
warming, alternative energy, local production and distribution
networks, and a green economy.  I think we have succeeded.  We
count as some of our accomplishments: the vast network of
biodiesel users in the East Bay and throughout the San Francisco
Bay Area; inspiring the Ecology Center in Berkeley to switch its
entire fleet of recycling trucks to B100 (longest running B100
fleet in the world) which in turn inspired the City of Berkeley to
switch to B20 and then B100 (for a while the second largest B100
fleet in the world); and inspiring other community-based coops
around the country to pool resources and make biodiesel
accessible, including the San Francisco Biofuels Coop.  All this
without writing a single grant.  People power.  

But the one thing that really stands out from our work is the
legacy of the Biofuel Oasis.  I remember when both Jennifer Radtke
and Sarahope Smith first joined up with us.  I remember when
Jennifer came to her first meeting in an old trailer in West
Berkeley and telling her how our collective operated and why.  I
remember first hearing that Sarahope had showed up on one of our
Saturday workdays at our fledgling production site, got right to
work, and at the end of the day wrote us her first membership
check.  

And I remember when they announced that they wanted to start a
fueling station, something that as a group we had stayed away from
for various reasons.  We were ecstatic.  We knew these two could do
it.  We carried on with our bulk purchasing coop for a little
while, until it became apparent that their hard work and
dedication was turning into a stable, committed and pioneering
enterprise.  

Now several years and the addition of I think five owner-employees
later, they – and the local B100 community that supports them – are
ready for a prominent and much larger location.  I urge you to
provide whatever support they need.  They are a real California
alternative energy success story.  And by ‘they’ I don’t just mean
the women of the Biofuel Oasis, I mean the dedicated volunteers who
have helped them out over the years.  And I also mean, so
importantly, the thousands of diesel car owners and converts who
have been paying sometimes a dollar more per gallon to leave less
of a pollution legacy to the next generation, to demonstrate to
their families, neighbors, co-workers that we can break the oil
addiction.  It is for them that this station should receive your
support.  

Thank you for your consideration, and I hope we can all thank you
at the new Biofuel Oasis dedication ceremony.

Sincerely,
Jon Bauer
1629 63d St.
Berkeley, CA 94703