Eco Etiquette: Where Has All The Biodiesel Gone?

I live in Los Angeles, and have a friend who runs his cars on biodiesel. He told me last week that LA County has ruled it a threat to the water table to store biodiesel in underground tanks, thereby effectively eliminating its sale. Is this true? How can biodiesel (99 percent plant oil) be more of a threat than gas or regular diesel? Could you research this? If it is as big of a scam as it sounds, what do I do next?

-George

I first started looking into this issue when my husband and I rolled up to our friendly neighborhood biodiesel station in West LA to refuel our 1985 Mercedes 300D (a beast of a car, I might add - those things run forever), only to discover that alas! -- a pump for dirty diesel fuel now stood in the place of our former veggie oil vendor. How could this be? Would we be forced to revert to collecting fast food French fry oil?

As it turns out, yes -- unless we felt like driving 25 miles round-trip to one of the last remaining bio stations or could drum up $250 to join the LA Biodiesel Coop (a worthy investment, but still pricey).

Your friend is correct about the decision regarding the underground storage of biodiesel, but the ruling is not exclusive to LA County; that green fuels are now near impossible to find is the result of a recent verdict by the State Water Resources Control Board.

The answer to how this could have happened is as murky as a bucket of crude oil. Here's the play-by-play: In May of this year, the water board expanded the approval of underground biodiesel storage from B5 to B20 blends; previously, only B5 had been tested for safety, and California law requires that underground storage tanks containing any chemical must be certified as leak-proof. (The "B" designation, by the way, stands for the percentage of eco-friendly oil that the blend contains, so B5 means that a blend is 5 percent biofuel, while B100 is made of 100 percent plant-based materials.)

This ruling permits up to a 20 percent bio blend to now be stored underground. Sounds good, right? Well unfortunately, because the board did not include a provision for higher blend fuels, such as the B99 sold at my local station, it effectively shut down the sale of high-grade biodiesels on a technicality. Most service stations do not have the capacity to store fuel above ground.

I understand that California policymakers are being cautious in the wake of past environmental disasters involving underground storage tanks releasing hazardous chemicals into the land and water. Blends lower than B100 do contain petroleum and the EPA has found biodiesel to have a significant solvent effect -- so theoretically, biodiesel not secured in leak-proof tanks could leach petroleum and other chemical additives into the water table. But why not make an exemption for pure (B100) biodiesel, which is completely biodegradable and nontoxic?

To add insult to injury, testing to approve underground storage of a new fuel can take up to three years. Granted, I don't know much about this process, but it seems preposterous that Gov. Schwarzenegger, if he's really serious about California's green energy future, can't speed this up - especially since this ban is responsible for shutting down small businesses in the midst of a deep recession and is thwarting the growth of jobs connected to the expansion of the green fuels market. I don't know if I smell Big Oil, but there's something suspect about the whole thing.

Now I know, dear readers, that I'm going to receive a barrage of comments to the following effect: We're better off without biodiesel anyway; the farming of biodiesel is clearing the rainforests and raising our food prices; biofuels are contributing to world hunger, etc., etc... But the fact remains that the market and technology for sustainable and non-food based biofuels (biofuels, the next generation) are rapidly progressing, and this recent move by the water board is a major backslide from our clean energy, independent-from-foreign-oil future.

As for what to do in the meantime: The Southern California Biodiesel Users Group has an extensive list of policymakers you can contact to help keep biodiesel stations open in the state, as well as sample letters to send. And don't forget, there's always the leftover fry grease from your local fast food joint (probably the only time I'll ever advise you to pay one a visit).

Send all your eco-inquiries to Jennifer Grayson at [e-mail]. Questions may be edited for length and clarity.

Follow Jennifer Grayson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jennigrayson

Comments

[ChiProgressive]

Biodiesel is not the same as filtered waste vegetable oil which needs a modified engine,

Converting vegetable oil into biodiesel involves using volatile chemicals including:

methanol (which is poisonous and usually made from natural gas),

lye "which has been used on cadavers and is used to make high fructose corn syrup and has been shown to leach mercury into HFCS products as reported by the Huff Post. Also "CAUTION: Lye (both NaOH and KOH) is extremely caustic -- don't get it on your skin or in your eyes, don't breathe any fumes, keep the whole process away from food, and right away from children.

Lye reacts with aluminium, tin and zinc."

Plus a lot of water is needed to wash these chemicals off the biodiesel so that it can run in regular diesel engines.

This whole thing is almost as bad for the environment as corn ethanol. If you want to lessen your impact, just convert your car to take waste vegetable oil or move into the city and ride your bike.

http://www.journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_make.html#start

[research]

Please, you would rather we dump in the oceans of a landfill>

BioFuels from Waste a good idea. Of course we should be careful with toxic compounds from he process,

BioChar of wastes is essential to the future energy needs of the world.

see my profile fo proof and links.

[John Henshaw]

Bio fuels are not really the benefit the the global warming situation as you may think. There is some evidence that they may only make the situation worse when all the CO2 emissions of producing bio fuels are considered - not to mention the burning of rain forests to create bio fuel plantations.

Maybe its time for an electric car.

[research]

Not if you use WASTE.

Not if you do Carbon Negative BioChar.

Look it up.

[Arnold Thompson]

I think the People at State Water Resources Control Board need to be reamed out. Common Sense must prevail over all else. The worst case scenario has occurred. The adherence to extremist policies gives credence to the Conservative's labeling of the Far-Left Liberal Environmentalists as out of touch with reality and dangerous to the well being of normal folks.

I do not like extremism as it is almost always disastrous. A balance between the pros and cons results in a fluid, thinking solution of practical solutions to real life problems.

[research]

BioFUels From WASTE organics is the solution,

BioFuels from fresh crops is a disaster.

Between Rooftop Solar 3 cent per KWH and Waste BioFUels

we can supp0ly all the worlds energy needs, cleanly, cheaply and forever.

see my profile for details.

[BannedNBoston]

Legalize HEMP
8X more biodiesel than canola
6X more BTUS than corn.
Canola Oil 133 gallons per acre
Hemp diesel 1,000 gallons per acre
ARNHOLE VETOED THE HEMP BILL!!!

[DRaymond]

Reading between the lines what I see is that apparently prior to the expansion of the regulation from B5 to B20 anything above B5 stored in underground tanks was being done so without regulation or approval at all. That hardly seems ideal.

Moreover the existing biodiesel production can now be blended with regular diesel into B20 and sold anywhere in the existing infrastructure of gas stations. Having B20 sellable anywhere will do more to increase distribution opportunities for biodiesel producers than having B100 at a few green boutique gas stations. It might not be fine for the people on a quest to brag about being the greenest guy in their circle of friends. But real sustainable market changes are never created just from the zealots.