The city of Denver is coverting more than 100 trucks and snow plows to run on clean-burning biodiesel.
The Denver Business Journal says the city is getting $700,000 in federal stimulus bucks to retrofit the equipment:
Denver announced Thursday that it had received the “Clean Diesel Conversion” grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The money will be spent on:
• 48 city-owned public works trash trucks.
• 53 Denver Water construction trucks.
• Nine snow plows at Denver International Airport.
• Buying more than 250,000 gallons of B100 biodiesel from Blue Sun Energy Inc. in Golden, which does business as Blue Sun Biodiesel.
“Biodiesel is cleaner than diesel and is a domestically produced energy source,” said Sabrina Williams, environmental analyst and grant project manager with Denver’s Department of Environmental Health, in the announcement. “We’ve been using biodiesel in the city’s fleet since 2004. This grant money will be used to offset the cost of purchasing the environmentally-friendly fuel.”
The conversion includes putting pollution-control devices on the trucks and snow plows and various idle-reduction technologies to help cut down on emissions.