Research and market demand are opening new opportunities for agriculturally based industrial materials. If biodiesel is approved as a certified technology for the Urban Bus Retrofit Rebuild Program, U.S. transit operations would be able to use it to meet air-quality regulations without any change in operability and maintenance. Ethanol sales in the reformulated gasoline market have been strong, despite the court-ordered elimination of the renewable oxygenate requirement. Cornstarch is used to make xanthan gum, a popular ingredient in food, pharmaceuticals, and industrial products. In 1994, an estimated supply of 10.8 billion pounds of cotton lint, linters, motes, and textile wastes were available for industrial purposes. Essential oils and their derivatives are widely used as flavors and fragrances, a market estimated to be worth $9 billion. A special article examines the expected costs of operating a bus fleet on three different alternative fuels-biodiesel, compressed natural gas (CNG), and methanol-with petroleum diesel as the base fuel.
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