News and information about Biodiesel & alternative fuels.

2007/11/25

More on San Francisco biodiesel

Eric Smith recaps the latest SF Bay Area/biofuel news in this great BeyondChron article:
  • almost all of SF's diesel fleet will be running b20 by end-of-2007
  • SF may be the largest city in the USA to be re-using waste grease in a sustainable way
  • SF Petroleum has b100 available for city vehicles as well as residents
  • Rainbow Grocery has after-hours biodiesel filling

2007/11/20

Free San Francisco Grease Recycling

Great news from San Francisco earlier this week, in the Chronicle:
  • SFGreasecycle announced, a free program where the city will pick up used cooking oil from restaurants/hotels/etc., to be converted to biodiesel for the city's 1500-diesel vehicle fleet
  • is partially in response to illegal grease/sewer dumping, which costs the city ~$3.5M to clean each year
  • is part of the city's mandate that all its diesel vehicles use B20 by end of 2007; this'll reduce CO2 emissions by 15% and diesel soot by 20%
  • SFGreasecycle is the first stage; later they'll look into building their own production plant
  • Program website: http://www.sfgreasecycle.org/

2007/04/22

WVO in San Francisco

As an SF resident, I was glad to see this, from the Examiner:
"Leftover grease from San Francisco’s restaurants will be recycled into fuel for The City’s diesel buses, under a $1.3 million program in the works by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission."
...

"At least 1 million gallons of biodiesel fuel could be manufactured from the oil collected from The City’s 2,600-plus restaurants, said SFPUC official Lewis Harrison, who added that is “more than enough” to contribute the required 20 percent to power the entire fleet."

2007/02/17

India Biodiesel Update

Via an email from my Dad, here's an MIT Tech Review article about India and Biodiesel:
"Biodiesel could be an important renewable substitute for fossil fuels. And, in certain parts of the world, governments and some corporations consider the jatropha plant, common in hot climates, one of the most promising sources of biodiesel. The plant can grow in wastelands, and it yields more than four times as much fuel per hectare as soybean, and more than ten times that of corn. But the commercial-scale cultivation of jatropha, which has not previously been grown as a crop, raises several significant challenges."

...

"
So far, the project has signed up 5,000 farmers representing 1,000 hectares of land. The goal is to have 8,000 hectares under cultivation by March 2008, and Adholeya says that the success of the first crops has drawn interest from many more farmers. By the end of 2008, TERI plans to have a production facility producing biodiesel from jatropha. Eventually, it aims to produce 90 million liters of biodiesel annually."

2007/01/04

Texas FUD

This is unfortunate, but at least they're extending the study to learn more about the issue:
"The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality says that blending 20 percent (B20) or more of biodiesel with diesel fuel could increase the amount of nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions above levels permitted by the state, as per a law passed in 2005."