Biodiesel banned in Texas

Come December 31st, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is set to effectively ban biodiesel in the state’s largest markets. The problem, they say, lies with the fuel’s nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and their contribution to the formation of ground-level ozone in Texas’ eastern counties. According to the TCEQ, biodiesel does not meet the stricter NOx standards recently imposed on diesel and alternative diesel fuels under new regulations. Efforts to clean up the air, led the TCEQ in November 2005 to adopt Texas low emission diesel standards (TxLED) in an effort to reduce pollutants in the state’s smoggiest 110 counties. Texas’ biodiesel industry - the largest in the country - suddenly found itself essentially outlawed after the standards went into effect.

Industry officials banded together to form the Biodiesel Coalition of Texas (BCOT) and convinced the TCEQ to give them a one year reprieve to resolve the NOx issues. The end of that period is fast approaching and despite the best efforts of BCOT and results from a recent study conducted by the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Lab showing biodiesel to have negligible NOx emissions, the TCEQ seems ready to enact the ban come 2007.

The ban is not iron-clad. Producers of biodiesel and biodiesel additives can have their products approved for use at any time after the start of the year, if independent testing shows that their NOx emissions are low enough to meet the TxLED standards.

Still many in the Texas’ biodiesel industry are confused and irked by the TCEQ’s approach to the issue. They say, at a time when other state environmental agencies are increasingly promoting biodiesel as a clean, non-toxic, renewable and home-grown alternative to petroleum diesel, the TCEQ’s transfixion on the NOx issue will smother Texas’ burgeoning biodiesel industry.

The TCEQ’s stance on biodiesel is predicated, in large part, on a 2002 EPA study that found that B20 blends (20 percent biodiesel, 80 percent petro diesel) on average, emit two percent more NOx emissions than TxLED. The Biodiesel Coalition of Texas has serious doubts about the test’s findings, and maintains that the fuel’s emissions of nitrogen oxides are no higher than those of TxLED.

Recent testing by the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) seems to validate BCOT’s position. The study finds fault with the testing methods used in the 2002 EPA study. Lead author, Robert McCormick explains, “About 45 percent of the data in their data set were for one engine model…an engine model that happens to show a small NOx increase.” Results can vary widely based on the feedstock, engine type and testing methods being used. McCormick, who is the NREL’s Principal Engineer for non-petroleum based fuels research, notes that in analyzing test data it’s important not to weigh any one engine too heavily, which, in the case of the EPA study, may have skewed its results.

In addition to pointing out problems with the EPA’s testing methods, the NREL study conducted NOx tests of its own while also performing a comprehensive review of recent studies on the subject. In its study, 8 heavy duty vehicles were assessed using B20 fuel. Some vehicles emitted a slightly higher percentage of NOx, while others yielded lower NOx. Taken together, “Biodiesel, appears to cause no change in NOx emissions,” reports McCormick. In other words, NOx emissions were neither higher nor lower than those of TxLED. “For B20,” the review of recent studies revealed, “substantial reductions in emissions in particulate matter, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons and on average, no change in emissions of NOx.”

When asked about the recent NREL study, the TCEQ said that it was evaluating the findings but had not made a decision as to whether the study would alter their position. They did however note that, “The type of test procedures used for these recent NREL tests are not used by the EPA or the TCEQ for heavy-duty diesel engine emissions testing.” The TCEQ will only accept tests conducted in a laboratory on stand-alone engines. McCormick contends that the NREL, “can do engine testing too but we chose to test vehicles because,” it reflects real-world conditions and, “we feel like that’s a lot more realistic.” He goes on to remark, “I don’t think the EPA folks would say that vehicle-testing data is of a lower quality than the engine-testing data.”

Rudy Smaling, program director of the New Technology Research and Development (NTRD) project, says the EPA has even made some statements in the past suggesting that the ozone forming potential of biodiesel is less than it is for petro diesel. The NTRD is a state-wide project that helps to identify, test and evaluate new technologies that can reduce emissions. Both Smaling and McCormick believe more studies need to be conducted.

As much scientific debate as there is over biodiesel’s NOx emissions, there may actually be more over NOx emissions from ethanol. Like biodiesel, the official verdict is out as to whether low levels of ethanol blended with gasoline emit more NOx than without it. Ethanol makes up a substantially larger portion of the fuel supply (almost all of our gasoline contains 10 percent ethanol), forcing some to wonder why the TCEQ has not looked at ethanol as closely as it has biodiesel. According to Smaling, it soon might. “If states are going to consider outlawing biodiesel because of the NOx increase,” Smaling warns, “then they’ll definitely want to consider doing the same thing with ethanol.”

While the biodiesel industry hopes and waits for the TCEQ to withdraw its impending restrictions, some additive companies are rushing to have their product certified by the state to provide a means for the fuel producers to continue conducting business after the end of the year. An emission testing is not cheap, with costs in some cases running over $100,000 per product.

The TCEQ, by way of its New Technology Research and Development (NTRD) program, has provided funding for 15 biodiesel related projects to be tested. Two of the projects have completed their testing. GTAT California’s Viscon additive received approval in September of 2005, only to have it rescinded some months later after it failed under different testing protocols. Another additive produced by Clean Diesel Technologies narrowly missed being approved according to the TCEQ’s Morris Brown. More than half of the projects never made it to the final testing phase because grantees did not meet certain obligations. Another six proposals are currently under review according to the TCEQ. Seemingly all of the proposals involve the use of an additive, which according to the BCOT are not effective at reducing NOx and only add to the cost of the fuel.

If the TCEQ goes ahead with its ban, to stay in business producers will have to either ship their fuel out of state or use an as of yet uncertified additive to lower their fuel’s NOx emissions. Speaking for the industry, BCOT president, Jim Karlak says, “For us to transport biodiesel from where we are located, to outside of the 110 counties, which essentially means outside of the state of Texas, would be a dramatic margin hit to all the producers and I’m not certain we could afford that hit.” Karlak is also CEO of SMS Envirofuels, a biodiesel production company located in San Antonio. The ban would force him to dramatically reduce production and ship his fuel out of state, placing SMS Envirofuels at a competitive disadvantage to producers located outside of Texas.

Here in Houston, Chris Powers of Houston Biodiesel has had to put off plans of expanding his business. Powers says he wants to put in 12 more biodiesel pumps around the city, but is awaiting TCEQ’s decision before moving forward. If the ban is enacted, he will scrap the expansion plans. As for the single pump at Houston Biodiesel, Powers say he will have to transition from selling a B99 blend to B100. The TCEQ does not recognize B100 as a transportation fuel and has no authority over its use. By switching, he says he will lose the 99 cent per gallon blending credit that has helped keep his prices competitive with petro diesel. Loss of the credit would mean a severe loss to his customer base. “I’d be priced out of business,” says Powers.

Some boner posted this as a thread a few years back, but i got pulled, as it was a troll post. His formatting, not mine.

Do you know that there is a chemical additive to gasoline that adds 20% more miles traveled to a gallon of fuel? I doubt that you do because there has been a media blackout of this story for near 15 years. You are probably thinking that there must be a negative side to using this additive that makes it unreasonable to use. Would you be surprised if I told you that it also eliminates 70% of harmful emissions from exhaust fumes? Of course you would. What about if I told you that it would also allow you to drive your car longer with less repairs because it also makes your engine run smoother and more efficiently. Would you then believe that there still must be something wrong with it or you would have heard about it? What if I told you that this same additive is used to make bubble gum chewy and is approved by the FDA as a food additive? Would you still be looking for a reasonable explanation why you haven't heard about it? I mean at least you would have heard about it from environmentalist if it was that good, even if the oil companies didn't want you to know about it, right? Maybe you are thinking it is too expensive, but then it is used in bubble gum, while bubble gum is cheap? Maybe you are thinking it must take such large quantities to use it that it could never successfully be implemented in a fuel products program? No way. It only takes a few tables spoons to a tank of gasoline to work effectively. It is cheap and easy to produce and could solve much of the worlds problems if it were in use right now but the worlds banking institutions have over extended themselves based on sales of pharmaceuticals and medical services in the US and around the world where an additive like this would allow for too great an advancement towards better human health, where investors in these enterprises would lose their shirts. For most investment ventures, this would be a byproduct of competition and risk associated with investing in a progressive market but the people behind this scam on the human race and our earth is being conducted by people who see themselves as owners and inherent masters of our race. There is an additive that you can find information out about, two of them actually, and these two additives have been or are widely used. They are MTBE and ethanol. Both of these additives worsen air quality significantly, poison groundwater throughout the nation, cause dramatic changes in weather patterns in regions where they are used, contribute to global warming at an alarming rate, and cause you car to get less gas mileage than if no additive were used. The one benefit that both these additives have is that they cause numerous health maladies in people that are exposed to them in drinking water and exhaust fumes where the proper testing that is required by law has never been done. This results in physicians not knowing anything about what to look for as it relates to health issues related to these carcinogens where they prescribe medications for what the symptoms resemble. This results in huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Trillions of dollars in profits. Right now, these issues are the hottest commodity in Washington, DC. I am an activist whose health was ruined by MTBE. I was arrested last year by federal agents and flown from Washington, DC to Houston and held for 13 months without a trial or bond to stop me from interrupting the passage of a bill that would make it impossible for Americans to sue the oil companies for what they have done. The war with Iraq was being used as cover for getting the bill passed where Americans would be too distracted by the war to give notice to a complicated topic they knew nothing about. I beat the federal government in Houston and the bill also never passed due to my efforts. Pressure needs to put on Washington and the news media to tell the truth about Polyisobutylene, the good additive, and what it could do for our planet and future. I don't believe there is a catch to this additive. It is used to clean up oil spills. It is a polymer. A polymer is like a hardener additive like in an Epoxy glue kit where there is two tubes that you mix together while one of those tubes contains a hardener, or polymer. When added to a crude oil spill, it causes the oil to coagulate, or clot up, so the oil doesn't spread and dissolve. It makes it easy to clean up with vacuum like pumps. What polyisobutylene does is it tightens the molecular structure of gasoline, or any oil product, so that it combusts more efficiently. It is like when gunpowder is burned without being contained in a metal shell, it just makes a big sparkly flame. But when it is encased in a metal shell, it explodes. This higher rate of combustion causes more of components of gasoline to burn and turn into inert carbon byproducts instead of coming back out the tailpipe unburned fuel. This creates less pollution and more power. Gasoline and many other crude oil products are simply unfinished products put out on the market as defective products, unless polyisobutylene is mixed with it. It was originally developed by the military as an additive to jet fuel so that it would be less volatile, or gaseous. This helps to prevent explosions during crashes and during the fueling process where there are a lot of dangerous fumes that escape into the air. It is used in shops where workers are exposed to a lot of petroleum products to make them less gaseous. It makes gasoline less volatile where a lot of pollution contributing to low level ozone comes from fumes from evaporating gases from gasoline. The catch is that using Polyisobutylene would hurt the pharmaceutical and medical services industry that rely on people being exposed to highway pollution to keep their stock values high, and big polluting industries need automobile pollution to blame what they cause with their irresponsible plants with smog. Environmentalist need to be able to complain about fossil fuels in order to keep their following of young little eager beaver activists following them around like they are gods, while they also need the issue to keep donation drives healthy. If polyisobutylene was instituted on a massive scale, there would be nowhere left to focus to further rid our environment of pollutants other than to force polluters to clean up their production plants. This is not a complicated process. The only reason it doesn't get done by the polluters is because pharmaceutical sales is by far the most lucrative enterprise in the world with profit margins that can reach into the thousands of percents. The owners of these plants all invest heavily in pharmaceutical and medical services industries and know what would happen if they clean up their plants. The environmentalist leadership is also keenly aware that if the proper steps were taken, environmental issues would become old hat in a very short period of time while they have all taken out huge mortgages on their homes and have no other way to pay for their lifestyle. They also have become addicted to their position of power in society. If you look at any government agency that is created to solve any particular issue, you find that a few years after the agency is created, the problem it was designed to solve gets worse. This is because once a large amount of money is designated to solve a problem, the solvers are given a paycheck. They then take that paycheck to the bank and get a loan for a home they could never have afforded before they took on this new responsibility. The loan is usually for thirty years. If they actually solve the problem they were hired to attend to, they have no way to pay off the loan. If the problem gets worse, they get a raise and a position of with more power and less work within that agency, and they can go buy a new home in a better neighborhood and a Lexus. There is no incentive in the issue related solving process to actually fix something, in fact the incentive process points in the opposite direction. What needs to change is that if a group of people are assigned a task of finding a solution for a social ill, that they understand that once the task is completed successfully, they get to go home with a raise and keep their paycheck for the rest of their life, while they can then go out and find another job, solving some other social ill, so one day if they are able to solve all the worlds problems, they can retire rich without ever engaging a corrupt process. If a problem comes up with a solution they have created that lead to them retiring early, they have to go back to work but the paycheck keeps coming.

Let me do a quick separation to make it easier to read. Do you know that there is a chemical additive to gasoline that adds 20% more miles traveled to a gallon of fuel? I doubt that you do because there has been a media blackout of this story for near 15 years. You are probably thinking that there must be a negative side to using this additive that makes it unreasonable to use.

Would you be surprised if I told you that it also eliminates 70% of harmful emissions from exhaust fumes? Of course you would. What about if I told you that it would also allow you to drive your car longer with less repairs because it also makes your engine run smoother and more efficiently.

Would you then believe that there still must be something wrong with it or you would have heard about it? What if I told you that this same additive is used to make bubble gum chewy and is approved by the FDA as a food additive?

Would you still be looking for a reasonable explanation why you haven't heard about it? I mean at least you would have heard about it from environmentalist if it was that good, even if the oil companies didn't want you to know about it, right?

Maybe you are thinking it is too expensive, but then it is used in bubble gum, while bubble gum is cheap? Maybe you are thinking it must take such large quantities to use it that it could never successfully be implemented in a fuel products program? No way. It only takes a few tables spoons to a tank of gasoline to work effectively.

It is cheap and easy to produce and could solve much of the worlds problems if it were in use right now but the worlds banking institutions have over extended themselves based on sales of pharmaceuticals and medical services in the US and around the world where an additive like this would allow for too great an advancement towards better human health, where investors in these enterprises would lose their shirts.

For most investment ventures, this would be a byproduct of competition and risk associated with investing in a progressive market but the people behind this scam on the human race and our earth is being conducted by people who see themselves as owners and inherent masters of our race.

There is an additive that you can find information out about, two of them actually, and these two additives have been or are widely used. They are MTBE and ethanol.

Both of these additives worsen air quality significantly, poison groundwater throughout the nation, cause dramatic changes in weather patterns in regions where they are used, contribute to global warming at an alarming rate, and cause you car to get less gas mileage than if no additive were used.

The one benefit that both these additives have is that they cause numerous health maladies in people that are exposed to them in drinking water and exhaust fumes where the proper testing that is required by law has never been done.

This results in physicians not knowing anything about what to look for as it relates to health issues related to these carcinogens where they prescribe medications for what the symptoms resemble.

This results in huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry. Trillions of dollars in profits. Right now, these issues are the hottest commodity in Washington, DC. I am an activist whose health was ruined by MTBE.

I was arrested last year by federal agents and flown from Washington, DC to Houston and held for 13 months without a trial or bond to stop me from interrupting the passage of a bill that would make it impossible for Americans to sue the oil companies for what they have done.

The war with Iraq was being used as cover for getting the bill passed where Americans would be too distracted by the war to give notice to a complicated topic they knew nothing about.

I beat the federal government in Houston and the bill also never passed due to my efforts. Pressure needs to put on Washington and the news media to tell the truth about Polyisobutylene, the good additive, and what it could do for our planet and future.

I don't believe there is a catch to this additive. It is used to clean up oil spills. It is a polymer. A polymer is like a hardener additive like in an Epoxy glue kit where there is two tubes that you mix together while one of those tubes contains a hardener, or polymer.

When added to a crude oil spill, it causes the oil to coagulate, or clot up, so the oil doesn't spread and dissolve. It makes it easy to clean up with vacuum like pumps. What polyisobutylene does is it tightens the molecular structure of gasoline, or any oil product, so that it combusts more efficiently.

It is like when gunpowder is burned without being contained in a metal shell, it just makes a big sparkly flame. But when it is encased in a metal shell, it explodes. This higher rate of combustion causes more of components of gasoline to burn and turn into inert carbon byproducts instead of coming back out the tailpipe unburned fuel.

This creates less pollution and more power. Gasoline and many other crude oil products are simply unfinished products put out on the market as defective products, unless polyisobutylene is mixed with it.

It was originally developed by the military as an additive to jet fuel so that it would be less volatile, or gaseous. This helps to prevent explosions during crashes and during the fueling process where there are a lot of dangerous fumes that escape into the air.

It is used in shops where workers are exposed to a lot of petroleum products to make them less gaseous. It makes gasoline less volatile where a lot of pollution contributing to low level ozone comes from fumes from evaporating gases from gasoline.

The catch is that using Polyisobutylene would hurt the pharmaceutical and medical services industry that rely on people being exposed to highway pollution to keep their stock values high, and big polluting industries need automobile pollution to blame what they cause with their irresponsible plants with smog.

Environmentalist need to be able to complain about fossil fuels in order to keep their following of young little eager beaver activists following them around like they are gods, while they also need the issue to keep donation drives healthy.

If polyisobutylene was instituted on a massive scale, there would be nowhere left to focus to further rid our environment of pollutants other than to force polluters to clean up their production plants.

This is not a complicated process. The only reason it doesn't get done by the polluters is because pharmaceutical sales is by far the most lucrative enterprise in the world with profit margins that can reach into the thousands of percents.

The owners of these plants all invest heavily in pharmaceutical and medical services industries and know what would happen if they clean up their plants. The environmentalist leadership is also keenly aware that if the proper steps were taken, environmental issues would become old hat in a very short period of time while they have all taken out huge mortgages on their homes and have no other way to pay for their lifestyle.

They also have become addicted to their position of power in society. If you look at any government agency that is created to solve any particular issue, you find that a few years after the agency is created, the problem it was designed to solve gets worse.

This is because once a large amount of money is designated to solve a problem, the solvers are given a paycheck. They then take that paycheck to the bank and get a loan for a home they could never have afforded before they took on this new responsibility.

The loan is usually for thirty years. If they actually solve the problem they were hired to attend to, they have no way to pay off the loan. If the problem gets worse, they get a raise and a position of with more power and less work within that agency, and they can go buy a new home in a better neighborhood and a Lexus.

There is no incentive in the issue related solving process to actually fix something, in fact the incentive process points in the opposite direction.

What needs to change is that if a group of people are assigned a task of finding a solution for a social ill, that they understand that once the task is completed successfully, they get to go home with a raise and keep their paycheck for the rest of their life, while they can then go out and find another job, solving some other social ill, so one day if they are able to solve all the worlds problems, they can retire rich without ever engaging a corrupt process.

If a problem comes up with a solution they have created that lead to them retiring early, they have to go back to work but the paycheck keeps coming.

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