Biodiesel industry launches ad campaign to boost image
Source: Amanda Peterka, E&E reporter • Posted: Tuesday, June 11, 2013
The 30-second spot is airing on Washington, D.C., television news outlets as well as on national networks, the National Biodiesel Board said today. The group has also relaunched a website, AmericasAdvancedBiofuel.org, with information on biodiesel, a renewable fuel made from soybean oil, used cooking grease or animal fats.
“We have many sources of fuel for power plants: coal, nuclear, natural gas, hydro, geothermal, wind, solar, and more,” National Biodiesel Board CEO Joe Jobe said today. “Because no single source dominates, we have had stable and affordable electricity. Why would it make sense to rely only on petroleum for our cars, trucks, tractors, trains, planes, barges and buses?”
The campaign comes as lawmakers are facing increasing pressure from a strange-bedfellow coalition of interest groups to reform or repeal the renewable fuel standard, which mandates yearly levels of biofuels that must be blended into the nation’s fuel supply. This year, the standard requires the blending of at least 1.28 billion gallons of biodiesel.
Supporters of the renewable fuel standard, including the biodiesel and ethanol industries, have argued that it is necessary to grow the domestic biofuels industry and allow those fuels to compete at the gas pump with petroleum-based gasoline and diesel.
“Without choice, we’re at the mercy of chance. Why chance our future on only one transportation fuel?” a narrator asks in the new ad.
Virginia-based media company PCI created the television spot. The National Biodiesel Board did not provide a cost figure but said that funding was provided by the United Soybean Board, State Soybean Checkoff Boards, U.S. Canola Association, Northern Canola Growers Association and National Biodiesel Board.