Early last winter, Shannon Hill came home to discover the siding on her whitehouse was turning yellow and melting.
"Iactually had a significant uncontrolled fire in my system due to petroleumsludge build up," she says, explaining that the oily deposits in herfurnace had caught on fire.
Untilthat point, she'd never given much thought to what she used to heat her home.Then her furnace technician suggested she try something called Bioheat from alocal supplier, The smallcompany provides renewable fuels for both homes and transportation.
Owner Andrew Kellar admits it was difficult to attract customers at firstbecause of the misconception that people would have to modify their heatingsystems or vehicles to use Bioheat and biofuel.
"Anybodythat uses traditional oil to heat their homes can use the Bioheat product thatwe have," he says. "It's nothing more than a blend of traditionalhome heating oil with this biofuel that gets blended in. Shows up in atraditional looking oil truck.
"There'sno modifications to their home heating system that they have to do. It actuallyhelps the systems to run more efficiently."
Infact, he points out, Bioheat in its purest form has a solvent characteristicthat helps improve the efficiency of a heating system ? something regular homeheating oil doesn't have.
Amonth after her first fill-up with Bioheat, Shannon Hill checked her furnacefuel tank. The needle had barely budged. Thinking there must be some mistake,she tapped her gauge to see if it was broken. But the reading was accurate. Herfurnace had burned less than half the usual amount of fuel.
"Isaw a significant decrease in fuel consumption. I didn't do anything different- no insulation, no new roof, no nothing other than switch," she marvels."Not only do I feel better about it financially, but obviouslyenvironmentally, it was my main reason in calling."
Simply Green has a firm commitment to use non-food sources forits fuel. These days, the company's so-called feedstock comes from animal fatsthat would simply go to waste, as well as used restaurant grease and a varietyof soy products. But Kellar says they're also looking at a new source: algae.
"We'repart of a group up here in New Hampshire researching algae as the feedstock.Algae has become a really great answer to the whole 'food-for-fuel'thing," he explains. "It is grown on land where you couldn't growfood. You could grow it on top of a landfill or land that's not set up forproducing food."
Ahectare of algae could produce hundreds of times more oil that a hectare ofcorn, and a number of companies around the country are working on technology tomake algae a commercially viable fuel feedstock.
Hill was so impressed with her Bioheat experience that she went to work forSimply Green doing public relations and marketing.
A fewmonths after she started, three home heating oil suppliers in the neighboringstate of Maine went out of business due to rising oil prices. Because theycould not honor their contracts, more than 300 customers who had paid inadvance for deliveries were literally left out in the cold.
Hillrecalls reading about the plight of these people, including a woman and her twochildren who were completely out of oil and had nowhere to go.
"Shehad spent upwards of $1,200, and she was out and couldn't afford to refill hertank," Hill says.
Hillbrought the article to Kellar and asked if the company could do anything tohelp.
Kellardecided to sell Simply Green's fuels to the other companies' customers at cost.Though it was out of their customer service area, he found a way to get all thefuel up to Maine. As word of what he wanted to do spread, Simply Green's phonebegan ringing off the hook with calls from people who wanted to help deliverit, as well as sign up for Bioheat.
"Wewere just doing it because we felt as a business we should be helping people inour community," he reports. "The amount of exposure and excitementthat we got was beyond our wildest dreams."
Thecompany's customer base jumped to 800 clients, up from just 100 one yearearlier.
Kellarand Simply Green's good deed did not go unnoticed by the government, either.The state of Maine recently honored the company with its Environmental HeroAward.
Kellar says he's always been interested in the environment, but until he andhis wife adopted three children earlier this year, he never really realizedjust how much of an impact he could have.
"Itdidn't hit home before, but when children come to you ? by birth or adoption ?it really opens your eyes up to what's going to be left behind 10, 15, 20 yearsfrom now," he says.