Texas Governor Looks to E-Diesel to Improve Houston Area Air Quality

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Governor Rick Perry announced that he is instructing the Texas Department of Transportation to immediately begin using cleaner diesel fuel in fleets and equipment located in the Houston Area.

The U.S. transportation sector is responsible for one-third of our country's carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and to help improve air quality across the country, governments are looking to alternative fuels such as Emulsified Diesel (E-Diesel) to help clean up the air. E-Diesel is defined as a fuel blended with 15% of an emulsifier such as ethanol, and can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20%. Perry said switching to e-diesel could remove about 5.8 tons per day or a 19% overall reduction of nitrogen oxide (NOx), a component of air pollution.

The Houston region needs to be in compliance with federal ozone standards by 2007 or they risk loosing hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for transportation projects if the state fails to meet the deadline. Hear that Lee Brown and Katy freeway commuters?

Other states in the regions where ethanol is made like Minnesota and Illinois have been using E-Diesel in state buses and equipment for years. Test and demonstration programs have proven successful in bus projects and farming equipment with no problems resulting from using the fuel. 14 other states are looking into ways of reducing emissions and ozone levels through alternative fuels.

Jay Brunson, Synthetic Fuels Manager for Industrilinfo.com adds, "Using E-Diesel and biodiesel in transportation equipment like school buses can help reduce health risks such as respiratory problems in our kids, who are sometimes riding on buses for long periods of time every school day."

E-Diesel will cost about 20% more initially in the region because the gulf coast currently boasts no ethanol plants and ethanol would have to be shipped in and blended at the terminal level. PuriN0x, a low-emission diesel fuel technology developed by Lubrizol, may prove to be an alternative in Houston since the company already has plants on the Gulf Coast.