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NYC Council Member sold on biodiesel benefits
New York City officials are looking for ways to increase the required blend of biodiesel in fuel.
New York City Council Member Costa Constantanides tells Brownfield Ag News that the current standard of a two percent biodiesel blend is doing what it was intended to do.
“We’ve seen the air quality benefits, the equivalent of taking close to 20,000 cars off the road, since that biofuels standard was put into place in 2012, every year,” Constantanides told Brownfield in a restaurant located in his district of New York.
Two laws are currently being considered. One would provide a B5 biodiesel blend in ferries, and another would upgrade the current vehicle fuel standard from B2, a two percent blend of biodiesel, to B5, a five percent blend of biodiesel. That law would also provide for increases of five percentage points every five years until the standard reaches B20.
“And in areas where asthma’s the number one reason that we have children going to hospital sick, those air quality benefits mean real things,” said Constantanides.
Some of the city’s fleet vehicles run on B20 diesel with plans to get them to as high as B50. New York heating oil also has biodiesel blended with it. Yearly biodiesel demand just for New York City is into the hundreds of millions of gallons.
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