Biodiesel in Brevard County, Florida in Government Fleet Vehicles

According to Biodiesel takes on bigger role in Brevard by Rebecca Basu Brevard county governments fleets have changed over or are in the process of changing over the types of fuel in their vehicles. High fuel costs are effecting everyone especially government budgets. The government agencies are trying to find a way to lower their costs with out making drastic cuts. Most agencies are downsizing fleet vehicles, making a no-idling policy, and exploring hybrid technology. Alternative fuels are also being considered and used.

Titusville now has 105 fleet vehicles on biodiesel and Cocoa's fleet has been switched over. Palm Bay and Brevard Public Schools were the first to start using biodiesel. The city of Melbourne will be testing the biodiesel usage. Rockledge is already testing the alternative fuel.

Before you get too excited thinking this will cure all the fuel expense problems let me give you the numbers and the percent it is actually going to save. The savings are just a drop in a bucket. Even if every little bit helps, how much does it really help?

Cocoa's fleet operations manager says he expects savings of $12,000 annually with a budget of $500,000. This isn't even 5% savings. We are talking about a little less than 2 1/2% savings by using biodiesel. The county's solid waste division expects to save $60,000 annually with a budget of $2 million which would be about a 3% savings. Money is money but when you are talking about government budgets that depend on a certain dollar figure to even operate is the expense of changing over even worth the effort? Eventually the government is going to have to raise taxes or cut jobs.

The national average of biodiesel usage went up in the first quarter of 2008 by more than 76 percent. The nation used 81 MILLION gallons of biodiesel last year in the first three months and 143 MILLION gallons of biodiesel in the first quarter of 2008 by the US Energy Information Administration.