Bio Products Opportunity

Original post by Nearbio Team

Well, after 4 months of development and over 1400 phone calls, we’ve launched NearE85!

The interesting thing we spotted is that E85 availability is much more regional than biodiesel. The fact

that California only has 1 station is rather alarming! In fact, we took the Auto Alliance (www.discoveralternatives.com) count of Flex Fuel vehicles, by state, and compared it to our E85

station results and saw there are tremendous opportunities for regional E85 availability. The point

of making E85 regionally is to avoid the rail and truck transportation costs associated with non-regional supplies.

Well, we’re almost too tired to write anymore! But stay tuned for the next entry which discusses

the other reason we’re tired: launch of the Biofuel Route Wizard!

-Team NearBio

Original post by Nearbio Team

Greetings! Many users have suggested that the NearBio team create a blog. During our daily maintenance of the country’s most comprehensive and accurate biodiesel location database (also cell phone accessible and GPS-aware), we learn very interesting tidbits “on the road” to reducing foreign oil dependence and cleaning up the air.

As a result of our scouring the daily news articles, which we read voraciously, we also keep up on some of the political issues associated with alternative fuels (not just biodiesel). Some common themes that keep “cropping” up are the “fuel vs. food” debate as well as the newly emerging NO2 issue regarding canola oil from SRI. These will be discussed shortly, in upcoming blog entries, subsequent to our fact-finding being completed.

We also have found some very interesting statistics regarding vehicle use in various markets. We have spent quite some time gathering this data and thing it important for the biodiesel community to be aware of such data. For example, did you know that Texas has the highest number of diesel automobiles? Hence, the demand for biodiesel retail fueling locations should be quite strong in Texas. (California is second in diesel autos).

In closing, we are big fans of biodiesel, but still very objective in our analysis and conclusions. That being said, biodiesel is not a perfect alternative fuel, nor is any fuel source perfect, simply because of the laws of physics and the conservation of energy. However, biodiesel is a very good alternative fuel with many, many benefits for “greening up” the environment and reducing dependence on foreign oil and improving diesel engine life through increased lubricity.

We will do our best to keep our upcoming posts as informative and entertaining as possible :).

-Team NearBio

Original post by Nearbio Team

Did anyone check out the MTV “Pimp My Ride” episode on Earth Day? Gov. Schwarzenegger’s appearance was actually somewhat entertaining, and the car they rebuilt was a mind-boggling tour de force. It is also good to know that Arnie has converted two of his four Hummers to diesel, so he can run biodiesel in them.

Now, here′s the question. California is the only state in the nation where paperwork must be filled out by someone wanting to purchase a biodiesel blend greater than B20. The first time you purchase the fuel, you will be asked to provide the make and model of your car, contact information and legalities. This is because in 2004 the CA Division of Measurement Standards prohibited the sale of fuel containing greater than 20% biodiesel to the public. The only way to SELL greater than B20 is to get a waiver from the DMS and file quarterly reports on vehicle types, fuel used, etc. Hence the need for “user groups″ and COOP memberships to coordinate these logistics.

It seems to be a paradox for Gov. Schwarzenegger to be explictly promoting biodiesel while he doesn’t appear to have done anything to solve the above problem.

The NearBio team is curious if anyone has any additional insight or late-breaking news as to these regulations changing. One would think change should be imminent, but unfortunately it may not be the case. Updates appreciated… Thanks!

Original post by Nearbio Team

We are thrilled to announce the availability of biodiesel station pricing for selected locations! This information will be provided on the website and WAP users (cell phones with Internet access) but is not available with text messaging.

Most of the retail locations do not have a convenient way for us to report daily price changes, but a few do, so we spent last week working on an important enhancement to deliver price data for each station that reports daily pricing.

Further, if you frequent one of the stations on our list (for which we can’t automate pricing), then feel free to update us about the station’s current price by sending us an email (info@nearbio.com). Frequent updaters will earn some neat items from the NearBio.com store!

As petroleum-based fuel prices are expected to rise dramatically this summer, we are pleased to begin suppling prices as it will demonstrate the cost-effectivity of biodiesel. We hope to get more online soon.

Cheers!

Team NearBio

Original post by Nearbio Team

We had a few questions about the recent press release from uLocate, Inc. and the WHERE application.

First things first: WHERE is an application from uLocate that you install on a compatible phone. The beauty of WHERE is that it is extensible through “widgets″ that applications developers create. These widgets typically provide useful information for you, based on your current location, which is automatically supplied! For example, a widget might provide you the current air quality based on your current location, or the nearest brew pub. (Yes - the folks at NearBio invented the air quality widget :)).

The benefit of WHERE for NearBio usage is that you don’t have to know where you are (while driving around) and thus you don’t have to enter anything. It is supplied automatically! The service is very inexpensive, and extremely useful and well though out - so we encourage you to learn more about it.

For fueling locations it is particularly useful, since usually you don’t know the zip of where you are when travelling/driving around. As well, you don’t have your GPS coordinates handy (and if you did it would be a pain to enter in all those digits). Further, just entering a city name (e.g. “San Diego”) is not very specific in nature and won’t get you the nearest locations, necessarily. Thus, the WHERE application with its many useful widgets is a particuarly valuable service. To find out more: WHERE.

-Team NearBio

Original post by Nearbio Team

There’s a great new tool that has recently become available! It allows a complete simulation of various energy strategies to reduce dependence on foreign oil as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

It really does let you play “President” for a day, and see how your energy strategies would impact the world as we know it. It is rather sophisticated and allows for various strategies, with different start times and phase-in windows, along with various percentage improvements on several levels.

BEWARE - The results of your strategy may not appear as you might expect!

This new tool can be found at: forio.com/simulation/oil . We HIGHLY encourage you take a peak and share with friends and colleagues.

While the output focuses mostly on reaching a goal of reducing dependence on foreign oil, it can be used tangentially to address greenhouse gas emissions as well. We played around with various strategies, and, admittedly, the energy world is not quite as simple as we all would like it to be. The basic problem is our gargantuan consumption, and projected increased consumption. What this means is that small or medium-sized changes don’t quite impact things the way we would like, and this underscores the bigger problem that we all know looms (pink elephant begging the question in far corner of the room!).

Let us know how your simulations go!

-Team NearBio

Original post by Nearbio Team

Original post by Nearbio Team

Original post by Nearbio Team

This week was a big milestone for the NearBio team as we culminated a several month development effort with the NEEDBIO.COM launch!

NEEDBIO came about because many NearBio users would send us emails expressing their frustration that there were no biodiesel retail pumps within 10 miles of them. They wanted to know who to contact, and we quickly realized that it was not very efficient for each and every person who had unmet biodiesel needs to figure out who to contact.

Instead, what makes more sense, is to have a simple button for a user to click if the results of the NearBio “search” page showed unsatisfying results. Then, the user can just fill out the details of their needs, and it immediately goes into a national database.

We ask NEEDBIO users to enter their zip code, annual miles driven, mpg, number of vehicles, minimum blends, and maximum distance they would drive (one way) to fill up. The reason we ask this information is so that we QUANTIFY the unmet need, versus just saying “there are 10 people in zip code 85013.”

In just a very short period of time we have over 1,000,000 annual gallons of unmet biodiesel need!

However, before we can make this data available to suppliers, it must be statistically signficant. We have set a goal of 1000 entries as the minimum threshold. So, please help us spread the word if you anyone who is interested in biodiesel, but does not have a nearby retail fueling location….

Thanks!

-Team NearBio

Original post by Nearbio Team