November 2013 • 27
Biodiesel
Leveraging the RFS for Success in Home Heating
Biodiesel producer and Bioheat dealer find success with renewable energy
By Jenna Higgins Rose, for the National Biodiesel Board
ROBERT KUHSEL SAYS HE DIDN’T WANT TO
end up an old man on a barstool crying into
his beer over what might have been. At one
time a high school shop teacher, he decided
it was time for a dramatic career change.
“What motivated me was that I was not
happy with foreign oil and tired of sup-
porting it,” Kuhsel said. “I said ‘I’m going to
do something about it.’ This is what I did.”
What he did was take a leap of faith
into the biodiesel business. Having gained
exposure to alternative energy as a school
administrator for Amity Regional in
Woodbridge, Conn., he started looking
into biofuels and decided biodiesel made
sense. In 2008, during a dark chapter of
biodiesel history when many others were
leaving the business, he and his partner
saw opportunity. They broke ground on
White Mountain Biodiesel, LLC, in North
Haverhill, New Hampshire.
The company has produced biodiesel
for about three years, focusing on selling
into the fuels and Bioheat
®
market in New
Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont.
To ensure a quality product, each batch is
tested in-house, and an independent labo-
ratory does random sampling.
While the business is successful today,
employing about 20 workers, the road has
had a few rough spots.
THE RFS ROAD
One of those rough spots came with the
implementation of the federal Renewable
Fuel Standard (RFS), which sets modest
minimum requirements for the blending
of renewable fuels in the American fuel
supply. With the capacity to produce 3 mil-
lion to 4 million gallons per year, the plant
is classified as a small producer. That made
selling RINs, the credits used to fulfill RFS
obligations, a challenge.
“We felt a bit like prey as a small pro-
ducer,” Kuhsel laments. “When we went
to sell our RINs, obligated parties weighed
their risk/reward in working with us, and
ultimately we had to sell at a discount
because of our size.”
Those trying times in the early stages of
the RFS have turned around, thanks in part
to the RIN Integrity Task Force set up by the
National Biodiesel Board to look for viable
solutions to build confidence in RINs for all
involved. Now there are several options for
producers of all sizes to validate their RINs,
thus enabling them to earn full market value.
White Mountain opted to use third-
party vendor Genscape to validate the
plant’s RINs through the new EPA-approved
Quality Assurance Plan program. The QAP
is a voluntary program with the objective
of providing a more structured means to
make sure RINs entering the marketplace
are generated in a manner that insures
their validity for obligated parties. White
Mountain sells its B99 biodiesel to local
petroleum dealers who then delegate them
back to the company, which they then sell
to one or more obligated parties.
“I would say enthusiastically that the
system is working for us,” Kuhsel said.
“There are other systems as well, but this
was the best one for us.”
THE BOURNE IDENTITY
One of White Mountain’s customers is
Bourne’s Energy, a 66-year-old distribu-
tion business that began offering biodiesel
and Bioheat about three years ago. Based
in Morrisville, Vermont, the company
has locations and customers throughout
Northern Vermont.
Peter Bourne, president, says the com-
pany’s identity has changed with the addi-
tion of biodiesel. He uses the Bioheat logo
on his trucks, signs and marketing materials
for his oilheat customers. About 85 percent
of the company’s biodiesel business is for
the home heating oil market, and the rest is
for the on-road market.
“New England has a tendency to prefer
sustainable, green products, and our cus-
tomer base fits into this,” Bourne said. “We
wanted to differentiate ourselves from our
competitors.”
Bourne says his customers like the fact
that he offers a clean and renewable energy
source, and there have been no complaints
regarding the low blends of biodiesel used
in their applications.
Continued …
The grand opening of the
Bourne’s Biofuel Blending
Plant in Morrisville, Vermont.
