“It gives me Excel nightmares,” says Cory-Ann Wind, manager of the Oregon Clean Fuels Program. This requires a vast spreadsheet developed by the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago. To see why, one has to understand “carbon intensity.”īelieve it or not, it’s possible to calculate how much carbon it takes to produce a fuel, ship it and burn it, down to how many miles it travels and whether it came on a ship, train or truck. When it comes to carbon pollution, locally made biodiesel is better than imported renewable diesel. “In time, we hope the market will adjust, but losing SeQuential as a supplier furthers our belief that the city’s new mandate is not currently achievable.” “Oregon has lost a critical local source of low-carbon biodiesel,” says Mark Fitz, president of Portland-based Star Oilco. With Neste closing the Salem refinery, and the city mandating a transition to cleaner fuels, businesses selling diesel fuel in Portland are feeling squeezed. “They are in the business to make money.”
“They just want the grease collection piece,” says one Oregon fuel supplier who declined to be named in print for fear of reprisals by Neste. That means Oregon, once a biodiesel producer, will become a grease colony for California, shipping used cooking oil south and likely receiving shipments of refined renewable diesel coming back north after value is added. Through acquisitions like SeQuential, Neste is building a supply system to feed its mammoth new renewable diesel refinery in Martinez, Calif., near San Francisco. “Therefore, Crimson will cease biodiesel production at its SeQuential Salem facility just prior to closing of the sale to Neste.” The sale is scheduled to close next month. “Neste does not produce biodiesel,” says Satu Vapaakallio, a director at Neste, in a statement to WW. (Environmentalists prefer the term “nonconventional” diesel because making the stuff requires the addition of hydrogen, which often comes from fracked methane.) Diesel burned in vehicles and construction equipment accounts for about 17% of Portland’s carbon emissions, according to the city, and it creates black soot that coats Oregon’s glaciers and causes them to melt faster.Īnd, unlike gasoline, diesel has substitutes: biodiesel and so-called renewable diesel, a similar fuel that can be made from all sorts of nonpetroleum feedstocks, such as waste from fish canneries.
By 2030, the city will require stations to sell only diesel made from low-carbon, renewable sources, such as used cooking oil or animal tallow, aka grease. Last week, the City Council passed a resolution that will gradually ban the sale of petroleum-based diesel fuel within city limits starting in 2024, a national first. (Mick Hangland-Skill) By Anthony Effinger Decemat 5:45 am PST The Jubitz Truck Stop in North Portland sells biodiesel.
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