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Fill 'Er Up with BioWillie!
Forget putting a tiger in the tank, get on the road again with BioWillie.
Willie Nelson wants you to fill up with his own brand of clean-burning renewable diesel fuel. The eco-friendly crooner officially unveiled BioWillie this week in hopes of attracting environmentally conscious consumers who want to help break what President Bush calls our "addiction to oil."
The hirsute country music maverick turned up at an alternative fuel station in San Diego on Wednesday to celebrate BioWillie going on sale in the state of California. To mark the launch, Nelson filled up his tour bus from a pump featuring a photo of him strumming a guitar.
Per the official biowillie.com Website, Nelson touts his namesake fuel as being easier on the environment than regular gasoline because BioWillie is derived from vegetable oils and animal fats. An added bonus: BioWillie smells better, with the scent of French fries, soybeans, peanuts or other alternative fuel source wafting from the exhaust (as opposed to the scent wafting from Willie's bus, but that's another story).
BioWillie combines several of Nelson's pet causes: protecting the environment, stopping the war in Iraq and preserving small farms.
"It is the future," the 72-year-old singer said at the opening-day ceremony. "Through biodiesel, we can reduce our dependency on foreign oil and adopt an energy source that's clean and renewable and helps family farmers find new uses for their products."
In its purest form, BioWillie sells for around a $1 a gallon more than regular diesel, but will also be available in a cheaper blend called B20, which is 80 percent petroleum and 20 percent biodiesel made from soybean oil. Even in its diluted form, the fuel is purportedly more environmentally sound than traditional diesel.
Before going on sale in California, BioWillie was previously available in South Carolina, Georgia and Carl's Corner, the crooner's own truck stop in Texas that also doubles as the headquarters for his year-old company, Willie Nelson BioDiesel.
However, critics, including some environmentalists, contend that BioWillie ain't all it's cracked up to be.
For instance, producing any serious quantity of plant-based fuel would require more farmland and compete with other crops, potentially driving up food prices. Additionally, some studies show that biodiesel might reduce greenhouse emissions but creates another pollutant, nitrogen oxide. The Sierra Club and other green groups prefer cleaner-burning natural gas instead.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, biodiesel is the fastest growing alternative fuel with sales tripling in just the last year to 75 million gallons. That's still less than 1 percent of the diesel sold nationwide.
But Nelson, whose own Mercedes runs on the stuff, is undeterred and hopes to expand his burgeoning alternative-fuel empire. His wife, Annie, owns a Volkswagon Jetta that runs on grease collected from restaurants.
"I drove the car, loved the way it drove," the Farm Aid founder told the New York Times in December. "The tailpipe smells like French fries."
As for his own Mercedes, he said: "I get better gas mileage, it runs better, the motor runs cleaner, so I swear by it."
If sales continue to climb, Nelson expects BioWillie to be made available all across America in the coming months.
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