New Yorkers turning to biodiesel for heat

If the Big Apple's initiative helps reduce emissions, other cities and states may follow suit.

By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the September 18, 2007 edition

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New York - Manhattan's Lower East Side is famous for its pastrami and pickles as well as its rich Jewish heritage. Now, a small cooperative building in the area is one of the first places in the city to use a blend of heating oil and biodiesel to keep residents warm this winter.

In the basement of the former tenement, a boiler is sipping the fuel, which significantly reduces the building's emissions of soot and carbon dioxide.

"I sleep better at night knowing that we're not polluting the earth as much," says Fred Seiden, a member of the co-op on East 7th Street and the driving force behind the fuel change.

Mr. Seiden's building joins an increasing number of New York buildings – perhaps numbering in the thousands by this winter – that are turning to biodiesel for heating. Starting next year, the city itself has plans to use a biodiesel blend to heat city-owned buildings. This marks a potential new role for the cleaner-burning fuel, which is currently used mainly as a blend with traditional diesel to cut emissions from trucks. If it helps New York clean up its air – third worst in the nation in terms of airborne particulate matter – other cities such as Boston and Philadelphia may shift over as well, experts say.

"New York is doing it first, and many other states are already looking at it," says John Huber, president of the National Oilheat Research Alliance in Alexandria, Va. "If it goes smoothly, it will encourage further action."

By some estimates, New York consumes about 500 million gallons of fuel oil per year for heating – about 5.3 percent of total US consumption. If the city successfully moves to a 20 percent blend for biodiesel, that would account for 100 million gallons. Such an amount is currently equal to almost 30 percent of national biodiesel production, which has been doubling and tripling every year.

Biodiesel is typically made from soybeans or waste cooking oil in restaurants. It can be produced domestically. When it is blended with regular oil, it improves the viscosity, which helps burn the fuel more efficiently and with lower emissions.

A shift to biodiesel could significantly cut emissions of sulfur oxide and carbon dioxide, as well as particulate matter, experts of the fuel say. Some tests show a small increase in nitrogen oxide emissions. "The net effect is you are getting a break on three of four pollutants," says John Nettleton, a biodiesel expert at the Cornell Cooperative Extension in New York City. "There will be a major benefit in terms of public health."

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