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PECO Goes Biodiesel
Philadelphia PA (SPX) Feb 19, 2008 PECO is now fueling all of its approximately 580 utility trucks with a biodiesel fuel blend, reducing the amount of carbon dioxide and other emissions released into the aosphere, all part of the company's overall efforts to aggressively seek and implement ways of being more environmentally conscious. PECO accepted its first delivery of biodiesel recently, and within days, company service building fueling stations were filling PECO trucks with a blend of petroleum diesel and refined vegetable oil. The PECO fleet consumes approximately 15,000 gallons of fuel a week and spends more than $5 million a year on fuel for its fleet. Currently PECO's transition to a totally green fleet consists of: one prototype hybrid bucket truck, 43 hybrid SUVs and seven natural gas powered vehicles. This combined with the 580 trucks using biodiesel brings PECO's alternative vehicle total to more than 630. Using a blend of 20 percent soy-based oil and 80 percent diesel fuel results in a net 16 percent reduction of carbon dioxide emissions for every gallon of biodiesel used over regular petroleum diesel. "This supports PECO's greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction strategy," said Bill Flemming, PECO fleet manager. Using biodiesel instead of straight diesel also reduces carbon monoxide by 20 percent, hydrocarbons by 20 percent and particulates by 12 percent. PECO has contracted with the Energy Cooperative, a local non-profit with members throughout southeastern Pennsylvania, to supply the biodiesel. The vegetable oil is blended with petroleum diesel from Sunoco and delivered to PECO sites. "So we continue to use Sunoco-produced diesel fuel and also help a non-profit organization that is dedicated to the use of environmentally friendly fuels," Flemming said. Susan Godwin, PECO's manager of Environmental Safety and Industrial Hygiene, said the bio-diesel contract is just one of the environmental commients PECO is keeping. "PECO is committed to becoming a model of green operations, which includes fleet energy efficiency," Godwin said. "PECO is aggressively reducing GHG emissions while meeting our customers' energy needs." This is all part of PECO's, and its parent corporation Exelon's, overall environmental efforts to reduce the company's carbon footprint as well as that of our communities. PECO, Exelon and all of its business units has been actively involved in addressing climate change since the mid-1990s as a way to demonstrate that business can begin the transition to a carbon-constrained future today. Exelon established a new voluntary goal to reduce its GHG emissions by eight percent from 2001 levels by the end of 2008, and to work with, and encourage, its suppliers to reduce their GHG emissions. Related Links Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Identifying The Need For Biodiversity Assessments Of Oil Palm Plantations
Cambridge, UK (SPX) Feb 18, 2008Oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) cultivation has expanded dramatically in recent decades and is frequently cited as a major threat to tropical biodiversity. This is because oil palm is grown in lowland tropical regions and so impacts on the most biodiverse terrestrial habitats: tropical rainforests. |
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