Biodiesel Industry Launches First Ever National Advertising Effort

The U.S. biodiesel industry this week is launching its largest-ever public outreach effort. The paid ad buy will raise awareness of the economic, environmental and national security benefits of the nation's first and only EPA-designated advanced biofuel to reach nationwide production. 

The multi-million dollar project will include national television advertising, coupled with regional print and radio advertising as well as an online presence. The centerpiece of the education effort is a 30-second spot that will air across the nation on Sunday-morning network talk shows, beginning this Sunday, June 19^th. The ads feature the tagline, "Biodiesel. America’s Advanced Biofuel" and focus on biodiesel’s viability here and now. The television spot highlights biodiesel use in the Dallas area to demonstrate the fuel’s practical, common-sense appeal in communities across the country.   View the television commercial here: www.AmericasAdvancedBiofuel.com.        

"The public generally doesn't know that there is an advanced biofuel here now,” said Joe Jobe, CEO of the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), the industry trade association. “This is not some pipedream. Biodiesel today is fueling long-haul trucks from Florida to California, municipal buses in Texas, Ford pickups in Detroit, and Volkswagens in New York City.”

“It’s helping communities reduce air pollution while cutting greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change,” Jobe said. “It’s creating jobs and economic growth while generating hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenues. And it’s reducing our heavy dependence on foreign oil, the single largest component of our massive national trade deficit.

Biodiesel is a renewable, clean-burning diesel replacement made from an increasingly diverse mix of resources such as agricultural oils, recycled cooking oil and animal fats, with a host of potential future feedstocks such as algae under research. It is the first and only commercial-scale fuel being produced nationwide to meet the EPA’s definition as an advanced biofuel under the agency’s Renewable Fuel Program, which is aimed at spurring development of sustainable alternatives to oil.

The EPA has determined that biodiesel reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 57 percent to 86 percent compared with petroleum diesel, depending on the feedstock used. Biodiesel also has the highest energy balance of any domestic, liquid fuel, yielding 4 ½ units of energy for every unit of fossil energy it takes to produce it. The EPA also says biodiesel dramatically reduces nearly every toxic air pollutant compared with traditional diesel.