Greased Lightning The first gas station in a major city to sell vegetable fuel for diesel cars and trucks opened [May 22] in San Francisco. A similar station also opened in Sparks, Nev. The biodiesel fuel is made from recycled vegetable oil from restaurants or from soybean oil. The fuel doesn't cut back on nitrogen oxide emissions, but it does avoid the carbon monoxide problems and the cloud of particulates that come from burning diesel. Vehicles using biodiesel experience a small drop in fuel economy, and give off the scent of french fries. [Š]."

straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Jane Kay, 23 May 2001 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/05/23/MN110637.DTL

This was in the Buckminster Fuller Institute's news letter.

Namaste,

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2001

Answers

San Francico public transportation system was using what they considered a safe cooling system to replace conventional air conditioning to keep passengers comfortable while riding buses on hot summer days.The EPA banned the use of this system until they could run test on it and the cooling agent, to make sure it was safe for the enviorment,this was about 5 years ago,and the EPA said it would take about 10 years for them to test it cause there was a waiting list of other chemical compounds needing testing for all kinds of new prouducts to be used.The cooling agent was H2O ,water.With red tape like this, making our enviorment less polluted seems like a upsteam swim in white water rapids.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2001

I heard something similar about this on WPR a while back. They were talking with a man whose company does the conversion on the fuel and he said that they couldn't keep up with the demand. At the time, they were mostly selling only to fleets of trucks so they could do bulk deliveries and weren't set up for retail, but noted that it was only a matter of time until someone was.

I'm not surprised that it is in San Francisco...that seems to be the most environmentally aware city in the U.S., not to mention that this man reported that the biodiesel was very popular with the owners of diesel Mercedes, etc.

I suppose smelling french fries has gotta be better than smelling petroleum exhaust.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2001

Here's a website that may interest you: Maui Green Energy Biodiesel

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2001