Around Piedmont Biofuels, we really are powered by one motivation. And that is to keep up with Kumar and company out in California.
In terms of sustainable biodiesel producers in America, we sort of feel like bookends. Yokayo Biofuels holds up their end of the country in Ukiah, California, and we try to hold up our end on the east coast. Once we get past the little stuff, like who is better looking, and whose blog is more influential, we move into more serious competition. Like trucks and tankage and gallons produced.
Unlike Piedmont, Yokayo has made a little money over the course of history. This is typically evident at the annual National Biodiesel Board conference, where Kumar wears nicer clothes than mine.
Occasionally we are able to transcend our bitter rivalry. After all, Kumar offered a blurb on the back jacket of Biodiesel Power, which is without a doubt one of the reasons it went on to become a homemade fuel cult classic. And perhaps more importantly, one time when Kumar was in town conducting some industrial espionage, he reviewed my kitchen knife collection and showed me how to use a toner and a whetstone.
When all is said and done, it becomes clear that Piedmont is late to the oil collection business. While Kumar was figuring out how to move grease around, we were producing tanker loads of poultry fat derived fuel. While Moya and Caleb were killing themselves collecting oil out at the Coop, we were buying full loads of fat and spinning them into fuel.
Now that we have joined forces, our attention has shifted to the business of collecting oil. Like Kumar. That’s not something we admit in public–generally we limit our comments on Kumar to critiques of his speaking style, but in private we all wish we would have followed his lead sooner.
Oh well. Kumar sort of considers us as the “talkavists” of the grassroots biodiesel movement, and whenever comparisons between me and him arise, I always try to steer the conversation toward hair.
That said, recently Kumar has been blogging about his new “Christmas Vac Truck,” which is the latest addition to his fleet. The fact that it is bigger than ours, or that he collects more oil than we do is irrelevant.
We are Piedmont. We like to look good:


Original post by Lyle