Brooklyn Bio-Diesel Plants Welcomed As Part Of City’s Sustainability Plan

"Oil refineries once crowded the banks of Newtown Creek in Greenpoint, belching smoke and noxious fumes until the last of them closed in the 1960s. Left behind was a terrain and waterway so contaminated that lawsuits over their cleanup continue to this day."

Now comes two plans for fuel production that are not based on petroleum, and will fit well into Mr. Bloomberg's environmental sustainability plan called PlaNYC.

A fuel terminal in Greenpoint, Brooklyn may soon be home to one of the largest biodiesel fuel manufacturing plants in the country. Unlike other large bio-diesel plants, Metro Fuel Oil will remain family-owned.

If approval is granted, it will produce 110 million gallons of fuel a year from raw vegetable oils barged from crushing plants in Maryland and Pennsylvania (currently the soybean oil is trucked-in). That amounts to "more than 40 percent of the biodiesel fuel produced in the country last year."

Tri-State Biodiesel is also scheduled to begin production next year. Unlike Metro, it "plans to use recycled restaurant grease as its feed source, said Brent Baker, the company's chief executive. The company is awaiting state and city permits to begin producing 3 million gallons of biodiesel a year on an industrial site in Red Hook. Mr. Baker said he had agreements with some 400 restaurants in Manhattan to collect their used grease at no cost."

In contrast to oil refineries, "biodiesel fuel makers say their production methods are vastly cleaner, and safer...The byproducts include some methanol, which can be reused, and glycerin, which can be sold for use in soap and other products."

Notwithstanding the methanol that is explosive - "the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group, says biodiesel is no more toxic than table salt and biodegrades faster than sugar."

"Community response for the Red Hook plant has been largely supportive, according to Tri-State. Fewer know about the plans for the Greenpoint plant, said Gerald A. Esposito, district manager of Community Board 1"

"Mr. Bloomberg's environmental sustainability plan could help build the local (bio-diesel) market, city officials say. Called PlaNYC, it includes a raft of measures, including the use of alternative fuels like biodiesel."

"Elements of the plan call for eventually using biodiesel in school boilers, and in the city's entire heavy-duty truck fleet, numbering in the thousands of vehicles. The city's Parks and Recreation and Sanitation Departments are already using it."

"By introducing things in New York, or by doing them ourselves or giving incentives, we also create a market," said Daniel L. Doctoroff, deputy mayor for economic development and rebuilding. "When you create a market, the price comes down, and as price comes down more people use the product, so you create a virtuous cycle."