The New York Times
Plans for two biodiesel fuel refineries are under way in Brooklyn.
Newtown Creek is the blue line between Queens and Brooklyn in the upper right.
Posted on 05/27/2007 10:52:34 PM PDT by neverdem
On an industrial strip of land hemming Newtown Creek, pipelines snake low to the ground, connecting an array of giant beige oil tanks.
From outward appearances, this little patch of Texas in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, would not seem to easily fit into Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan for a greener, less petroleum-dependent future.
But this fuel terminal may soon be home to one of the largest biodiesel fuel manufacturing plants in the country. The terminal’s owner, the Metro Fuel Oil Corporation, is awaiting city approval to produce 110 million gallons of fuel a year from raw vegetable oils. The output would amount to more than 40 percent of the biodiesel fuel produced in the country last year.
The Greenpoint plant and a smaller proposed plant in Red Hook, Brooklyn, both scheduled to open next year, would be the first biodiesel refineries in the city, hitching onto an industry that has been concentrated in the Midwest and the South.
The growth and eastward expansion of the industry are being driven by high petroleum prices and government programs aimed at reducing pollution and demand for foreign oil. But these changes are also creating concerns that the push for alternative fuels, if not managed carefully, could have unintended consequences like deforestation and higher food prices in the race to convert more land for fuel crop production.
“We have to pick the right policies and the best technologies,” said Ron Pernick, co-founder of Clean Edge, a Portland, Ore., research and consulting company. “But when done right, the move to biofuels addresses a number of issues, from the volatile prices of fossil fuels, to reliance on foreign supplies, to climate change, to job creation.”
Metro, a family-owned company that employs about 130 people (another 35 would come on when biodiesel production begins, officials say), added biodiesel...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ron, Ron, Ron. You left out the most important issue for the lefties in all this: central planning.
699 Columbia Street?
DiFontes sandwich shop is a couple of blocks away. Best hero sandwiches (subs, hoagies, grinders to you non-city folk) in the country.
A veal parm hero would send you into throes of a gastronomical orgasm. Yes, it is that good, I kid you not.
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