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<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.contracostatimes.com/berkeleyvoice/ci_12536568?nclick_check=1">http://www.contracostatimes.com/berkeleyvoice/ci_12536568?nclick_check=1</a><br>
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<h1 id="articleTitle" class="articleTitle">Berkeley says bye to
biodiesel</h1>
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<div id="articleByline" class="articleByline">By Doug Oakley<br>
Berkeley Voice</div>
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<div id="articleDate" class="articleDate">Posted: 06/06/2009 04:24:15
PM PDT</div>
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<p class="bodytext">Berkeley has ended its six-year attempt to save the
world by burning
biodiesel in its trucks and machinery amid concerns it actually
increases greenhouse gases worldwide and exacerbates hunger.</p>
<p>The city stopped receiving shipments of biodiesel derived from soy
bean crops last month.</p>
<p>The City Council will consider formalizing its policy on the matter
in September.</p>
<p>"Four
years ago we looked at this and thought it was a really good idea to do
biofuels when there were no crop-based biofuels, but the situation has
changed beneath us," said Robert Clear a member of the city's Community
Environmental Advisory Commission which recommended the city change its
policy on biofuels.</p>
<p>In 2003, the city started using 100 percent
biodiesel in its more than 100 cars and trucks that run on diesel fuel.
But that biodiesel was derived from recycled frying grease. Over the
years, the supply changed to a crop-based biofuel.</p>
<p>New thinking on that product and its implications for global warming
have changed for the worse.</p>
<p>Although
biodiesel pollutes less than regular diesel when it comes out of a tail
pipe, the farming involved to produce crop-based biofuels actually
increases pollution worldwide, city officials say.</p>
<p>Clear said
American farmers who are now converting their crops to grow soy beans
to meet the biodiesel demand are decreasing the amount of land used to
grow food for people and cattle.</p>
<p>That in turn has caused an increase in
demand for land to grow food in South America and South East Asia where
farmers are burning down virgin forests. The burning of the forests
releases carbon into the atmosphere and there is a decrease in the
amount of carbon the plants suck out of the atmosphere: two big
negatives for global warming.</p>
<p>Add that to the fact that
American farmers are growing less food because they are using their
land for biodiesel production and you have a crimp on worldwide food
supplies that contributes to global hunger problems.</p>
<p>Both of
those issues are something Berkeley policy makers don't want on their
save-the-world agenda even though local pollution is reduced when their
trucks are burning biodiesel.</p>
<p>"It no longer looks like a thing to encourage," Clear said. "It's
really too bad, because we'd love to see some magic bullets." </p>
<p>One
option is going back to using biodiesel from recycled fryer grease, but
there just isn't enough of it to go around and it's hard on the
engines, said Deputy Public Works Director Andrew Clough.</p>
<p>In 2005
the city had two diesel truck engines explode when the city got a bad
batch of biodiesel made from recycled fryer grease.</p>
<p>"Right now it
doesn't sound like there is a good option," Clough said. "What seemed
like a really good idea maybe isn't such a good idea as we thought
because of all the considerations."</p>
<p class="tagline"> Reach Doug Oakley at <a
href="mailto:doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com">doakley@bayareanewsgroup.com</a>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." – Che Guevara</pre>
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