Filed under: Biodiesel, Legislation and Policy
New Mexico House passes B5 by 2012 bill with 47-8 vote
New Mexico has voted a through a House Bill that would require all diesel fuel sold in the state to be B5 by 2012. The bill, which passed the House in a 47-8 vote, moves to make diesel fuel containing five percent biodiesel compulsory for all state agencies and public schools from July 2010 onwards. All diesel fuel would move to a B5 blend by July 2012. In case of poor product availability or excessive price however, the measure could be suspended by officials.
Analysis: Politically, moving to introduce locally produced, renewable biofuels and reduce "dependency on foreign oil" has become a good move. Of course, we all win when the politicians move to legislate for biofuel use and I don't doubt that five percent across the annual usage of a state like New Mexico would really add up. Let's hope it passes through the senate as easily.
Related:
[Source: Las Cruces Sun-News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Superfly 10:13AM (3/06/2007)
Ethanol doesn't remove CO2 it makes it worse. Growing mass quatities of corn requires lots of co2. Large quantities of co2 from NY city don't get pushed to Texas corn fields they go straight up to the ozone. Gas doesn't travel by land.
Modern day farmers use petroleum-based fertilizers, herbicides and soil-conditioners to provide the much needed CO2 and other nutrients quickly to the plants.
Yes folks the co2 comes from the petro-based products on the farm. The more oxygen they put out the more CO2 they are taking in otherwise they don't grow so fast.
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Jimmy 11:09AM (3/06/2007)
#1 "Superfly", The overwhelming majority of scientific studies so that both biodiesel and ethanol fuel production for traditional crops (soy and corn) result in lower CO2 production than the petroleum fuel they displace. The CO2 benefits for biodiesel are larger than corn ethanol and are substantial.
Also, the biodiesel which will be used in New Mexico can come from a variety of sources over the next five years. There is a huge amount of research into biofuels from non-traditional feedstocks and I expect we will see those products on the market within five years.
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Karkus 11:16AM (3/06/2007)
Ummm...we're talking about biodiesel here, not ethanol, and from what I've heard, biodiesel is better for CO2 and foreign oil dependency reduction than ethanol.
This B5 bill is one of the best pieces of biofuel news I've heard ! It makes much more sense than a few people running B20 or B100.
1. B5 will run on pretty much any vehicle, without modification, and many manufacturers have already approved B5 (and sell new vehicles with B5 in it)
2. the fueling stations don't have to add more pumps or upgrade/change their infrastructure.
3. B5 doesn't have cold weather problems.
4. Small amounts of biodiesel reduce pollution significantly. Therefore, it's better for everyone to use B5 than a few people using higher percentages.
5. Based on a recent blog post here, the US can only produce enough biodiesel in the near future to replace a few percent of total diesel consumption, so trying to get everyone to B20 isn't possible anyway. This bill is in line with those estimates.
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Superfly 12:21PM (3/06/2007)
Farmers used to use co2 from decomposition of manure. Since this is too inefficient and slow they are now using co2 from petroleum-based products. To say that this is helping co2 emissions in US is not putting into consideration the large amounts of extra CO2 emitted from the soil in the rapeseed farms. It can be good for the environment if farmers get fertilizers from new zealand lamb manure rather than petro-products from Saudi oil. Also thanks to GMOs farmers can put a lot more pesticides, herbicides into our waterstreams and soil without hurting their crops meanwhile killing all of us non-gmo folk.
Biodiesel is a good idea if done right.
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Bubba 5:57PM (1/26/2008)
Need a bill to authorize this too:
http://www.warriorsfortruth.com/alaska-oil-anwar.html
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