Stacy Innerst, Post-Gazette Click illustration for larger image.

When Charles Cross learned about biodiesel, he was skeptical. His firm -- North Side-based United Oil Co. -- had been successfully producing industrial lubricants since 1906 and his initial research suggested that producing biodiesel would require a major retooling of the plant.

But when the United Oil president discovered it would not take as large a capital investment as he thought, the company took the plunge last December and began producing fuel made primarily from animal fats. In its first year as a biodiesel producer, the company saw its overall sales triple, leading Mr. Cross to increase annual production capacity to 5 million from 1.5 million gallons and hire two employees, boosting his work force to six.

The transformation of United Oil illustrates a much larger transformation occurring in a regional economy that, built on the exploitation of fossil fuels, is discovering new, profitable opportunities through alternative energy.

From solar power to biofuels to wind energy, initiatives in both the private and the public sectors are laying the groundwork for a renewal of the region's claim as a leading energy center -- only this time instead of darkening the skies with acrid smoke and soot, the goal is to help clean it by creating and using cleaner fuels.

In some cases, it's simply a matter of an old company such as United Oil trying a new approach. In other cases, such as at Solar Power Industries, Pennsylvania's only manufacturer of solar cells, it's the creation of companies seeking solutions to the world's energy needs.

And in most cases, it's pushing so-called "green" production, construction and lifestyle practices that can make Pittsburgh a model for the rest of the world.

"There's no other city that is as positioned for a sustainable renaissance as Pittsburgh," said Nathaniel L. S. Doyno, executive director of Steel City Biofuels, a nonprofit organization formed last year by a trio of twentysomethings who share a passion for preserving the environment.

"Pittsburgh has all the things you need," he said: research universities, charitable foundations with an interest in alternative energy, affordable housing and brownfields that have and can become manufacturing sites.

Belle Vernon-based Solar Power got its start in October 2003 as a manufacturer of solar cells for solar-powered yard lights, the kind that people use to light their walkways. It has since expanded to make solar cells and power modules for a wider range of uses.

The solar cells start out as large chunks of silicon. The equipment at Solar Power's plant slices and dices the silicon into wafers six-inches square and 240 microns thick -- about the thickness of three human hairs -- at the rate of 10,000 wafers a day. Then the wafers are embedded with circuitry that converts sunlight into electricity.

	Post-Gazette Brad Beauchamp of GM fills a fuel-flexible Chevy Tahoe with E85 at Sheetz at 3954 William Penn Highway in Monroeville in September after a panel forum discussion to help customers learn more about E85 ethanol fuel. E85 is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. The station was the third in the region to offer E85. Click photo for larger image.

Like many other American manufacturers, Solar Power has profited from China's booming economy by selling an increasing part of its output to Chinese companies. The timing couldn't have been better.

Solar Power's sales spurted from $3 million in 2004 to an anticipated $15 million to $16 million this year largely on the strength of Chinese orders. And with that growth has come job creation, from a handful of employees when it started to a current 120, and plans to double that number over the course of next year.

While 95 percent of Solar Power's production goes to Asian and European businesses, that may change as the company tries to capture a share of the domestic market. According to Navigant Consulting Inc., a Burlington, Mass., consulting firm, the U.S. market for commercial solar installations should grow to $1.2 billion to $1.8 billion by 2010, up from $640 million in 2005.

Forward-looking Pittsburghers are not only manufacturing solar cells -- they are using them. Conservation Consultants Inc. has a solar array atop its South Side office building. Indiana Township boasts an array atop its public works division's salt shed. And the Audubon Society's Beechwood Farms Nature Preserve in Fox Chapel also has one.

All take advantage of what CCI executive director Ann Gerace sees as a counterintuitive fact for Pittsburghers: "The amount of sun we get [in the region] is very similar to what they get in Miami."

But the promise of alternative energy and alternative fuels only can be fulfilled as consumers, not just companies and organizations, decide to make use of them, Ms. Gerace and others note.

And moving to the point of widespread use requires something of a delicate dance, as consumers are reluctant to depend on an unfamiliar energy source and producers are reluctant to provide more than consumers may want to buy. That's especially true if the alternative sources cost more to buy and make.

Ethanol, a form of alcohol distilled from plants such as corn and wheat, is a prime example of this dichotomy. It can be used as either a replacement for, or an additive to, gasoline, but only in vehicles designed to take it. And designing such vehicles has not been a priority for automakers because gasoline, cheaper to produce than ethanol, has been more readily available at the pump.

In recent years, automakers have built more "flexible fuel vehicles" that can run on either pure gasoline or on an ethanol blend called E85 that is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. But because only some 800 of the country's gas stations sell E85, the environmentally conscious consumer willing to pay a little more for a so-called FFV car probably still will fill up more often on regular unleaded.

Sheetz Inc., the Altoona-based convenience store chain, took the lead locally in providing motorists with the option of filling up with ethanol. In July, it opened the first retail ethanol pump in Western Pennsylvania, at its Pleasant Hills location. Since then, it has added ethanol pumps at its Robinson and Monroeville locations.

Each conversion costs Sheetz $20,000 to $30,000, and an ethanol pump adds $100,000 to the cost of a new store, said spokeswoman Monica Jones . But the company is forgoing the installation of more ethanol pumps -- "Sales are not what we want them to be yet but we kind of expected that going in" -- to allow Sheetz to focus on "letting people know what the benefits are and then maybe saying, 'Oh by the way, we sell it as well.' "

To help ease the financial pain that can be created by moving to alternative energy, all levels of government -- federal, state and local -- have stepped in with policies and support for research into biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells, clean coal technology as well as solar and wind power.

The promotion of alternative energy has been one of Gov. Ed Rendell's favorite themes.

His administration has established an "alternative energy portfolio standard" under which the state increasingly will use alternative energy sources, including an agreement with the state's electric supplier that will guarantee that 20 percent of electricity used by state government will come from renewable sources, such as wind and hydropower.

The state also plans to spend $30 million over the next five years to build the infrastructure for producing and distributing up to 900 million gallons of alternative fuels yearly, and to push to have a billion gallons of renewable fuels sold annually at service stations by 2015. It also has doubled, to $3 million, funds available for rebates to state residents who buy hybrid electric vehicles

Locally, a 30-member Green Government Task Force is preparing a report, expected this month, on the city's energy use that will include recommendation on reducing the use of fossil fuels. Pittsburgh already is buying hybrid vehicles and moving toward using biofuels for its 1,000-vehicle fleet, including plans announced Thursday to turn waste vegetable oil and grease from Heinz Field's refreshment stands and restaurants into cleaner-burning bio-diesel fuel for the city's 300 dump trucks, garbage trucks, fire trucks and ambulances that run on traditional diesel fuel.

On the construction front, the city can boast of being home to 17 certified "green" buildings -- third most in the nation behind Seattle and Portland, Ore. Green buildings are certified by standards of the U.S. Green Building Council, which rates buildings by energy efficiency, design for maximum use of natural light and air, and the materials used.

The area's philanthropic community is helping accelerate the green movement by stepping up with funds to fuel alternative energy initiatives, such as the Heinz Endowments' long-standing commitment to reducing air pollution. "Energy production is a very big part of that," said Caren Glofelty, program director for environmental programs.

Heinz also is helping to fund Steel City Biofuels, the nonprofit organization formed last year by Mr. Doyno, along with Gregory Boulos and Peter Lambert. The nonprofit, which advocates for the use of non-fossil fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol through education, gained cachet when it became a project of the Pennsylvania Resources Council, the state's oldest environmental organization.

"The trouble with being green in Pittsburgh in general is that people don't know," Mr. Doyno said. "You can be doing great stuff, and we do have great stuff going on in this region, but if people don't know, you don't get very far."

The group has just received $50,000 from Heinz and another $30,000 from the Richard King Mellon Foundation to create a demonstration facility at Construction Junction, a recycling center for construction and related materials in North Point Breeze.

The hope is that the facility, besides producing biodiesel, will serve as a model of environmentally friendly construction by meeting specifications to earn the U.S. Green Building Council's highest Gold LEED certification. It will be open for tours by government officials, business people and consumers.

"We want to both educate them and to show them the fuel," Mr. Doyno said. "It's hard to engage with something that's just theoretical."

---

Correction/Clarification: (Published Dec. 12, 2006) The ethanol-gasoline blend E85 is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. This story as originally published Dec. 10, 2006 reversed the percentages.