San Francisco plans on running city bus fleet on B20 using WVO
So, they've made ads that are dumb, and possibly even offensive, depending on who you ask, and they just opened their first B20 station recently. But San Francisco is really putting some effort into greening their city. The newest evidence of this fact is that the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) will be collecting much of the city's waste vegetable oil (WVO) and using it as a base to create biodiesel. This biodiesel will then be used in a B20 blend to power the city's bus fleet.This could be a big environmental and economic benefit. To wit: "SFPUC official Lewis Harrison stated that at least 1 million gallons of biodiesel could be produced from left-over restaurant grease, which is "more than enough" to run the city's entire bus fleet on B20. Since WVO is a waste stream, offsetting petro-diesel usage with WVO biodiesel is particularly advantageous: the use of 1 million gallons of WVO-biodiesel would offset 19,600,000 lbs (9,800 tons) of carbon dioxide emissions each year. It also has significant economic and public health benefits: municipal biodiesel production should beat the $4/gallon price of fuel in San Francisco, and B20 biodiesel blends cut diesel soot emissions by 20-40%."
This quote was taken from an article on Green Options. Click here to check it out.
[Source: Green Options]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5chw4r7z 7:17PM (5/02/2007)
Cincinnati has been running B20 for almost a year now. The one thing that amazes me is you can't see any exhaust or smell it for that matter. When gas prices spiked last summer they were running almost 80% biodiesel. Of course ours is from Ohio soy beans and not waste.
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Chase 11:53PM (5/02/2007)
I think the fact that it is coming from waste oil means all of the bus fleet will have some major smell issues to deal with. The best solution is probably serving complimentary fries on each ride.
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