"I was the one who started the project," said 33-year-old Julie Van Alyea, whose father, Peter Van Alyea, is the company's founder and owner. "He probably wouldn't have done it without me. . . . I'm an environmentalist, and I wanted to make it available."
The story behind Brentwood's Conserv Fuels is much the same. But the hurdles have been high.
In 2006, when Kristopher Moller persuaded his father to offer biodiesel at some of the family's USA gas stations in Southern California, he thought the timing couldn't have been better. After all, high gas prices were infuriating drivers, the government was pushing alternative energy sources, and more and more people were becoming convinced that petroleum-based fuels were making global warming worse.
But in early 2007, just weeks after Moller finished outfitting the fifth USA station with biodiesel pumps, his father, John, agreed to sell the USA chain to Tesoro Corp. A few months ago, Tesoro stopped offering 99% biodiesel.
It was back to the drawing board. Kristopher Moller took control of a USA station in Brentwood that was not included in the Tesoro deal and in April started selling nearly pure biodiesel made from cooking and vegetable oils. The station was renamed Conserv Fuel and hosted a visit from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
In December, the station became just the second outlet in the state offering E85 to the public. The move should have been a triumph for Moller, but he was in no mood to celebrate.
Permitting delays and other glitches had sapped his finances. "I was struggling and fighting," said Moller, a 32-year-old Malibu resident, "but I didn't have the pocketbook to weather the storm."
So he handed control back to his father, who plans to give the station one year to improve its financial performance. If it doesn't, the elder Moller intends to convert it back into a standard gasoline station with a big oil company brand on the pumps.
"His heart is into the biofuels . . . and he really wants to see it succeed," John Moller said of his son. But his own view, Moller explained, is "show me the money."
The younger Moller is pinning his hopes on customers like James Courtney, who on a recent Friday drove from Venice to Moller's Brentwood station to pump the 99% blend of biodiesel into his buttercup-colored 1976 Mercedes Benz 300D, a car that's been in his family for decades. He paid $3.799 a gallon, more than he would have for standard diesel, but Courtney didn't mind.
