San Francisco Bay Area Drivers Get New Kind of Gas
Certain drivers in the San Francisco Bay area are getting the chance to gas up with a new kind of fuel this week.
It’s a form of biodiesel, but anyone familiar with that term will be relieved to know topping off the tank doesn’t meant going gas cap-in-hand to a McDonalds manager. Instead, the stuff known as Biodiesel B20 is made from algae — at least partially.
It’s actually a 20-80 mix between the slimy goop swimmers avoid and petroleum and on Tuesday a handful of gas stations in Berkeley, Oakland, Redwood City and San Jose started carrying it. It sells for about $4.25 per gallon, which is on par with what most drivers in the area pay for diesel fuel already.
While it’s new to commercial consumers, fuels like this have already been used for military vehicle applications. The algae being used to make the fuel pumping from those stations is also made grown in San Francisco by a locally-based company called Solazyme.
Biofuels aren’t likely t ever become mainstream, but they offer prepared consumers an alternative that reduces the volume of fossil fuels they consumer every year.
[Source: Detroit Free Press]
Luke is an energetic automotive journalist who spends his time covering industry news and crawling the internet for the latest breaking story. When he isn't in the office, Luke can be found obsessively browsing used car listings, drinking scotch at his favorite bar and dreaming of what to drive next, though the list grows a lot faster than his bank account. He's always on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> looking for a good car conversation. Find Luke on <A title="@lukevandezande on Twitter" href="http://twitter.com/lukevandezande">Twitter</A> and <A title="Luke on Google+" href="http://plus.google.com/112531385961538774338?rel=author">Google+</A>.
More by Luke Vandezande
Comments
Join the conversation
I've heard of algae being used in fuel but I didn't know that they perfected it and it is in use. I think that making this kind a fuel go mainstream would help us get to a sustainable fuel faster instead of using fossil fuels.