Portland's Fuel-ture Awesome
Posted by: kmikeym | From: December 11, 2006
Commissioners Dan Saltzman and Randy Leonard announced last week that Portland is providing $570,000 in grants to make biofuel more available in the City. Randy Leonard said "Biofuels create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and provide Oregon farmers with much needed new market opportunities."
The $570,000 is being administered by the Office of Sustainable Development. The Biofuels Investment Fund has $450,000 to support the development of infrastructure. The Retail & Fleet Biofuels Infrastructure Grant provides up to $10,000 to install or convert fueling equipment to support biofuels.
Randy Leonard's comments about providing new market opportunities for Oregon farmers strikes me as impressive. This past summer (July 12th) the City Council approved a citywide renewable fuels standard (RFS) which says that in on July 1st, 2007 a miniumim 5% blend of biodiesal for all vehicle diesel fuel sold in the city limits. While 5% is just a start, it does create a demand for thousands of gallons of biodiesel, which can be grown as rotational crops by Oregon farmers. The City/State synergy of this project is very awesome.
While the use of biodiesel isn't as sexy as Aerial Trams and WiFi, I really think that these are the sort of pioneering projects (The City of Portland is the first city in the country with a local renewable fuels standard) that are going to define the future awesome of Portland.
Yeah, I heard about this at the Solar Expo and was totally stoked. It kindled that flame in my heart that gets so happy thinking about how special this city is.
Posted by: dalas v at December 11, 2006 12:21 PM
I just went to the Columbia/Wilamette Clean Cities Conference on Renewable Fuels in the NW, at the PDX airport. Did you know that all gasoline sold in Portland is a 10% ethanol blend at legal minimum? Pretty interesting.
And there's that awesome Shared Route biodiesel shuttle bus for all of us non-car types.
Posted by: Tim Donovan at December 11, 2006 12:48 PM
The dirty little secret about biodiesel is that it takes more energy to produce a gallon of it than you get back. This energy deficit comes from producing the crop (very petro-chemical intensive), transporting it, and refining it into fuel.
To produce a gallon of biodiesel from soy beans, it takes 29% more energy than you get back. To produce it from sunflower seads, it takes 118% more. Liquid fuels from biomass simply are not worth it. It is a net energy drain, not a gain.
Please see this article about a study by Cornell University and UC Berkley.
While I believe Portland's push is well-intentioned (if ill-informed), in general we should be suspicious of governments pushing liquid fuels from biomass. It has all the hallmarks of a giveaway to agribusiness. Monsanto is salivating.
Posted by: Himself at December 27, 2006 2:27 PM
"Himself", you (and Dr. Pimentel) may be correct about the negative energy balance of biodiesel produced from soybeans grown in a petrofuel and petrochemical heavy process, but that does *not* mean that biodiesel "takes more energy to produce" than you get back. It just means that, of course, if you use a feedstock that is produced from a petroleum-based process, of course it will use lots of petroleum(duh!).
Please be aware that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of other potential feedstocks for biodiesel(and several different processes to convert to biodiesel), and most(if not all) of them are less petroleum intensive. Also, Dr. P has been heavily criticized for his methods. For less biased information about the true energy balance of biodiesel, please see some of the links here: http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=155126
And speaking of ill-informed, please do a bit more larnin' yerself before you go spewing ill-informed opinions in the future.
Posted by: Tad at December 29, 2006 11:02 AM
Post a comment:
TriMet just switched their entire fleet to a biodiesel mix:
http://www.trimet.org/news/releases/oct30biodiesel.htm
http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/opb/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=854132
Posted by: freddy at December 11, 2006 12:13 PM