Dallas ranks #5 on list of alternatively-fueled cities

Dallas narrowly beat out North Sea Offshore Drilling Rig #63.

DALLAS — Dallas ranks #5 on SustainLane Government's list of 10 U.S. cities that have had the most success in implementing alternative fuel programs in their city transportation programs. SustainLane surveyed the largest 50 US cities in 2006 as to the percentage of their city vehicles fleets using alternative fuels including biodiesel, hydrogen, ethanol, compressed and natural gas, as well as electric vehicles, gas-hybrid vehicles. Slightly greater weighting was awarded for biodiesel, electric and gas-hybrid vehicles.

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Dallas' new eco-friendly DART buses in action

Las Vegas led the nation with almost 63 percent of its vehicles using alternative fuels, including 450 vehicles using cleaner-burning B20 biodiesel (20%), in addition to using less-polluting compressed natural gas, electric hybrids and zero-polluting hydrogen vehicles.

Besides improving air quality over conventional fuel, alternative fuel development has become a hot item in economic development. The University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign landed in January a joint $500 million research center funded by British Petroleum in conjunction with the State of California, that will be Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories.

Some Midwestern states have long mandated a minimum corn-based ethanol percentages in all gas sold. The city of Portland, Oregon, became in 2006 the first major city in the US to mandate that a minimum percentage of all diesel sold in the city be 5 percent biodiesel fuel, which is made from plants such as soybean and canola instead of petroleum products. Portland also mandated that by July 2007, 10 percent of fuel sold in the city will come from ethanol, which is made from corn, and that official city vehicles run on a minumum of 20 percent biodiesel fuel.

Source: SustainLane