San Francisco switches to renewable diesel

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The City of San Francisco recently became the largest city in North America to fuel its fleet with renewable diesel.The City of San Francisco recently became the largest city in North America to fuel its fleet with renewable diesel.

The City and County of San Francisco has ended its decades-long use of petroleum-based diesel and is instead using renewable diesel to fuel its fleet.

Neste, the largest supplier of renewable diesel in the U.S., announced this week that the City of San Fransciso, which uses Neste’s NEXBTL renewable diesel, is now the largest city in North America using the alternative fuel.

The news comes following the State of California’s announcement last week that 3,835 of its fleet vehicles will be using renewable diesel instead of biodiesel and petroluem-based diesel.

For the City and County of San Francisco, which is the only consolidated city-county in the state, the switch to renewable diesel will result in a 50 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions, Neste reports.

San Francisco operates 1,966 diesel powered vehicles which annually use about 5.8 million gallons of diesel fuel.

“As the global climate negotiations conclude, San Francisco and cities worldwide must continue to lead by taking bold actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions immediately,” says San Francisco Mayor Edwin M. Lee.

“These actions cannot wait. San Francisco has ended its use of petroleum diesel to fill up the city’s fleet of vehicles and will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve air quality for our residents immediately today.”

The switch to renewable diesel on Dec. 11 came easy for the city’s fleet and its 53 fueling stations. Renewable, or synthetic diesel, requires no modifications to existing systems and can be directly substituted for conventional diesel.

The City of San Francisco reports that prior to opting for renewable diesel, most of its fleet was using B20, which is 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel.

Neste’s renewable diesel has been widely available in California since 2012 and is a significant contributor to the continuing success of the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and Governor Jerry Brown’s executive order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by state agencies.

“We feel privileged to help the City and County of San Francisco become more sustainable,” says Kaisa Hietala, Neste’s executive vice president of renewable products.

“It is our vision to give public and private fleets, as well as consumers, options to make such responsible choices.”

Neste’s renewable diesel is supplied to the City of San Francisco by Golden Gate Petroleum which is one of the first U.S. distributors of Neste’s renewable diesel.

Golden Gate Petroleum sells Neste product through NeXgen Fuel, a company dedicated to bringing next generation fuels to market.

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