ARTCO Joins ‘B20 Club’ Promoting Biodiesel

American River Transportation Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland, announced June 6 that it had joined the B20 Club, a partnership between the Illinois Soybean Association and the American Lung Association that recognizes a “select group” of Illinois-based organizations with strong commitments to run vehicle or vessel fleets on biodiesel blends of at least 20 percent.  

“The Illinois Soybean Association is excited to welcome ARTCO as a new member of the B20 Club. With these new partnerships, we can reduce carbon emissions all along the supply chain using a better, cleaner fuel that is grown right here in Illinois,” said Andrew Larson, ISA director of public policy and market development. 

“ADM has aggressive goals to reduce our overall environmental footprint, and we are committed to making improvements throughout our entire transportation network,” said Chris Boerm, president of transportation at ADM. “We are switching to less carbon-intensive fuels wherever possible and, even though we’ve been using biodiesel for many years in our fleet, are very excited to announce the transition to high biodiesel blends for our ARTCO vessels and to officially join the B20 Club.”

Of ARTCO’s fleet, 29 vessels are powered using biodiesel blends up to B30, consuming 22 million gallons of B20-B30 annually. By using biodiesel, ARTCO calculates it contributes to emissions reduction of 11.4 tons of particulate matter, 56 tons of hydrocarbons, 91.7 tons of carbon monoxide and 42,265 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each year. This amount of C2Oe is the same as planting 634,001 trees or installing 145 million LED light bulbs.