Claiming it now has the largest green fleet in the US, the city of San Francisco last week completed a year-long project to convert its entire array of diesel vehicles to biodiesel, a clean-burning and renewable fuel that holds promise for helping to reduce greenhouse gases.
Using virgin soy oil bought from producers in the Midwest, officials said that, as of Friday, 100 percent of the city's 1,500 diesel vehicles were powered with the environmentally friendlier fuel, intended to sharply reduce toxic diesel exhaust linked to an increased risk of asthma and premature death.
"Just like secondhand smoke, diesel is one of the worst things we can breathe," said the city's clean vehicle manager, Vandana Bali, of the Department of Environment.
The announcement came without fanfare from Mayor Gavin Newsom's office late on Thursday, even as congressional lawmakers dickered over the particulars of an energy bill that would give automakers incentives to produce cars that burn biofuels.
Bali said San Francisco's diesel vehicles now all used a fuel known as B20, a mixture of 20 percent soy-based biofuel and 80 percent petroleum diesel fuel, which reduces toxic emissions of carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons and other pollutants that lead to global warming.
"While there is a cost involved in prepping the infrastructure," Bali said, "no one has brought that up as an impediment in converting to B20."
A spokesman for Newsom, Nathan Ballard, said the push to use B20 stems in part from an executive order issued last year by the mayor to promote the use of alternative fuels and, in turn, reduce air pollution.
The overall goal, Ballard said, is to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
Just before Thanksgiving, Newsom announced a new program to collect fats and cooking oils from San Francisco's restaurants without charge.
"We are collecting grease," Ballard said. "Waste fats and oils are a major source of backup in our sewage system. But we're taking the grease that would have gone down the drain and turning it into biodiesel."
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