Eco-entrepreneur tests fuel-saving products

Montana Business Quarterly, Summer, 2008 by Amy Joyner

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It's not traditional summer school, but Pete Deneault is going to spend the next few months performing complex business studies that could change the way Montanans look at fuels.

It's not detention, so Deneault is not performing the studies himself on propane lawn mowers and fuel conditioners. He will be working with local, state, and federal agencies to determine just how eco-friendly the products truly are before beginning to actively market them in the Montana region.

Along with the rest of the nation, Montana faces major energy challenges. Businesses and consumers throughout the United States are looking for ways to lessen the negative environmental impact of burning fossil fuels. By lessening the base amount of fuels used, hazardous emissions and pollutants also will be decreased. Deneault has a few ideas that might help.

Eco-Entrepreneur

As vice president and co-owner of Big Sky Enviroproducts, Deneault will operate a Missoula-based distribution business with three areas of focus: clean-burning propane lawn mowers, a fuel-saving gasoline and diesel reformulator, and a lubricant that makes engines run more efficiently. Big Sky Enviroproducts became licensed in March of this year.

People recognize Deneault's name because weekdays from 3 a.m. until noon he is the news director and has been an award-winning on-air reporter since 1985 at GapWest Broadcasting. After lunch, he starts his "green" job of reducing pollution and helping businesses reduce fuel loss.

Deneault came to Montana in 1980 when his father relocated his bakery from New Bedford, Mass., to Ronan. He met his wife, Valerie, a Whitefish native, while he was working his radio job at XT93 (now Eagle 93). They have a 16-year-old son and a daughter who is 10.

Deneault's Big Sky Enviroproducts partner is his brother, Fabian, who formerly worked in Ronan for Jore Corporation, a Montana manufacturer of accessories for electric hand tools.

With multiple projects out on test runs across the state to determine the environmental friendliness of their new "green" technologies, the Deneaults are fast becoming friends of private consumers and business owners who want to save money on fuel and protect the environment.

First, Pete Deneault says, they need statistics and government seals of approval to add validity to their products and make them more saleable.

"I don't expect to sell a single product for three to six months--until the testing is complete," Deneault says. "I will sell primarily to industrial consumers like railroads, mining companies, state government, and then, eventually, into the fuel supply."

Admittedly, the 47-year-old radio journalist is not a fuels expert but relies on those who are and firmly believes in the testing being done.

Mowing Down Emissions

Pete Deneault's ecological enterprise began with conversations with Fabian, who lives in Las Vegas. Fabian Deneault works as a petroleum dealer handling propane sales.

Fabian Deneault tells about being at a trade show and being immediately sold on EnviroGard's "Low Polluting Lawn Mower," which meets all current and future emission requirements by the Environmental Protection Agency. EnviroGard, a division of Onyx Environmental Solutions based in Monroe, N.C., is in its third year of selling the low-polluting lawn mowers.

The company's president, Larry Coker, started working with the mowers five years ago and is now establishing dealers, like the Deneaults, around the country to sell the mowers, which has engines lasting three times longer than gasoline mowers.

"I just couldn't resist them," Pete Deneault exclaims. "They are environmentally friendly. They reduce organic compound emissions by 90 percent."

The second relevant point was, he says, the cost savings on fuel that can be realized by using propane instead of gas.

Through the past year, a gallon of propane has sold for about 30 percent less than its gasoline counterpart.

The EnviroGard mower creates up to 60 percent less smog-forming emissions and 80 percent fewer toxic emissions compared with mowers using diesel and gasoline fuel. "My goal for these [mowers] is to get these utilized wherever lawns are mowed throughout the state of Montana to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," says Pete Deneault.

The Missoula-based business is one of several across the United States working to become exclusive authorized EnviroGard dealers and service providers. EnviroGard manufactures a full fleet of low-polluting mowers from small walk-behind push mowers to large riding Z-turn models.

Pete Deneault can easily cite industry statistics and is quick to point out that gasoline's emissions make it one of the dirtiest and most dangerous fuels--behind diesel--because of its output of carbon monoxide and nitrous oxide.

Conventional lawn mowers will pollute the earth as much as 40 automobiles do during the same period of use.

In addition to the lower emissions, Deneault says that propane's cost is about 30 percent less than gasoline or diesel fuels. The savings are increased with no spillage, theft, or contamination concerns.