Governor Kim Reynolds made the biodiesel announcement at the Iowa Farm Bureau annual meeting.
Industry officials are praising Governor Kim Reynolds for signing an executive order that all new diesel vehicles purchased for state fleets run on B-20 fuel, which is 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel.
Iowa Soybean Association president Tim Bardole of Rippey says three new state snow plows will run on the blend. Bardole says, “When different truck fleets and just the private consumer sees the snow plows when it’s zero out running B-20 and proves that it works and they can see it works, I’m hoping that definitely opens a lot larger market for the biodiesel industry in the state.”
Bardole says Iowa’s 11 biodiesel plants produced 365-million gallons of the fuel last year. “Iowa’s by far the largest biodiesel producer in the nation so it’s very important to our rural economy to have a strong biodiesel industry,” he says. The association says biodiesel supports about 4,700 Iowa jobs.
(By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton)