Seattle pumps up biodiesel sales
City's refiners work to corner 'green' fuel market
The Pacific Northwest loves being green.
Recycling got an early start here. Seattle-based coffee giant Starbucks has scrambled to provide bird-friendly shade-grown coffee. State forestlands were the first in the West to earn "green certification" for environmentally sound management.
Now, with gasoline prices to wallet-busting ranges and petroleum tainted in many minds by violence in the Mideast, demand for biodiesel is booming.
The vegetable oil-based fuel can be burned in place of regular diesel or mixed in varying blends, with 20 percent biodiesel the most common ratio.
The blends are a little pricier than petroleum diesel but loaded with "green" cachet -- after all, it's made from soy or canola or recycled restaurant oils.
"Almost all of our customers run the highest blend that they can. Seattle is kind of unique in the nation," with private users pressing for the highest blends possible, said Dan Freeman of Dr. Dan's Fuelwerks in Ballard. "We have the highest concentration of individual users in the nation in the Puget Sound area."
Why buy it?
"Environmental reasons, political reasons, every reason," said Seattle landscaper Ann Magnano, one of Freeman's customers. "It's about giving farmers the opportunity to keep farming ... helping the planet."
"I'd rather pay American farmers than Saudi kings," said Shoreline resident Jeff Van Horn, who also likes using the cleaner fuel around his kids.
Biodiesel is available at specialty stations such as Freeman's and at a few regular stations and some heating oil suppliers.
But it's going to be a while before biodiesel goes mainstream in the United States.
At this point, somewhere between 3 percent and 4 percent of the nation's registered vehicles are diesel -- well below the 49 percent in Europe, where higher gasoline prices long ago made diesel's 30 percent to 40 percent greater fuel efficiency appealing.
Meanwhile, the country isn't capable of replacing even the petroleum diesel it already uses with homegrown biodiesel.
"We don't have the acreage, the production capacity," said Peter Murchie at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Washington and Oregon hope to get in on the ground floor of domestic biodiesel production.
"We're trying to build a whole industry in this state, from growing to crushing to refining to using," said Matt Steuerwalt, energy aide to Gov. Christine Gregoire.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
Seattle pumps up biodiesel sales
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