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Responding to the engine failure of two city trucks last year, city leaders in January scrapped its two-year-old program to power its fleet of nearly 200 trucks entirely on a derivative of vegetable oil. 

The move, Public Works Director Renee Cardinaux said, came after consultant Randall Von Weder determined bacteria mold found in the cleaner burning fuel had clogged engine filters and fuel injection pipes. 

Von Weder, of Point Richmond-based CytoCulture, said despite the city’s troubles with biodiesel, he never recommended that the city return to diesel, and said the best solution would be for the city use a 50-50 blend of biodiesel and a clean burning regular diesel. 

In January 2003 Berkeley won much acclaim by becoming the first U.S. city to convert its fleet to 100 percent biodiesel, which emits 50 percent fewer cancer and asthma-causing particulate emissions than regular diesel oil. Last year the federal Environmental Protection Agency awarded Berkeley the Environmental Award for Outstanding Achievement for the program. 

But after smooth sailing for the first year, Cardinaux said the city started receiving fuel of degraded quality from its vendor Golden Gate Petroleum. 

“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to get a biodiesel fuel recently that is consistently clean,” Cardinaux said. Presently, he added, the city has returned to using a blend of 80 percent diesel and 20 percent biodiesel. 

For next year, Cardinaux has proposed switching the city’s fleet to ultra-low sulfur diesel, a move he said would save the city $160,000 on fuel cost as compared to 100 percent biodiesel. 

Any switch away from biodiesel would meet opposition from the Ecology Center, which has operated the city’s recycling program with trucks powered on 100 percent biodiesel since 2001. 

“We’re still committed to it,” said David Williamson, the center’s assistant director. 

Because the Ecology Center uses the same pump as the city, Williamson said that its trucks are now also running on a blend of mostly regular diesel. 

Biodiesel and ultra-low sulfur diesel each have their deficiencies, said Mark Jacobson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University. He said biodiesel emits up to 10 percent more nitrogen oxide, which produces ozone and contributes to smog, while ultra-low sulfur emits more hydrocarbons which contribute to global warming and have been shown to cause cancer. 

“The bottom line is that they’re both polluters,” he said. 

Ultra-low sulfur’s competitive advantage comes both from its lower price and its support from the California Air Resources Board. Next year all commercial diesel pumps in the state will have to switch to the fuel, said CARB spokesperson Gennet Paauwe.  

Biodiesel will still be permitted for sale and use in California, she added, but institutional users like Berkeley will run the risk of a penalty if their biodiesel doesn’t meet ultra-low sulfur emission standards. 

“If we find consistent problems with an individual fleet, the owner will get slapped with a fine,” she said. 

Because of biodiesel’s higher nitrogen oxide emissions, Paauwe said, the CARB still doesn’t distinguish biodiesel from regular diesel. 

Algae-like bacteria that have sidelined Berkeley trucks also live in regular diesel fuel, Williamson said, but are more common in biodiesel. 

“Since biodiesel is so close to vegetable oil, the microbes just eat it,” he said. 

Since converting to biodiesel, city trucks have experienced high instances of sludge build-up under their engine valves and fungus growth affecting fuel pumps, said Ed Silva, the city’s senior equipment supervisor. He added that the two trucks to experience engine failure were 18-wheel hauling rigs and that the city has had to upgrade the fuel line systems in its garbage trucks to make them impermeable to the corrosive effects of the fuel. 

“We never had these problems when we were using regular diesel,” Silva said. 

Williamson said the Ecology Center recently had trouble with one of its recycling trucks attributable to biodiesel bacteria growth. Williamson though said the Ecology Center still favored biodiesel, because unlike ultra-low sulfur the fuel is not refined nor does it require energy to be extracted from the earth. 

Von Wedel, Berkeley’s biodiesel consultant, said that bigger city trucks had experienced problems with 100 percent biodiesel and that the fuel appeared to decompose a lot of their rubber components. He attributed the problems to a lack of quality fuel and the overall youth of the industry. Although European cities use biodiesel, he said, Berkeley was the first city worldwide to use the fuel for its entire fleet.  

Golden Gate Petroleum Operations Manager Claude Brown said his company was working to address Berkeley’s concerns, but contended that biodiesel sold to the city was top quality. He said the city’s problem could stem from the presence of water in their storage tanks, which promotes algae growth. 

Since Berkeley became the first city to go 100 percent biodiesel, two cities, Telluride, Colo. and Coconut Creek, Fla. have followed suit, said Jenna Higgins of the National Biodiesel Board. 

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