School kids get day off as cold weather clogs biodiesel in busses
School buses in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and St. Louis were sidelined Monday when the biodiesel may have clogged up fuel lines. About 25 percent of the buses in Fort Wayne area were affected. Officials say they run on B20, which is a mix of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent premium diesel fuel. The problems may not be entirely the fault of biodiesel. Officials also said some buses that run on 100 percent diesel fuel in other districts also failed.
In St. Louis, at least two buses were diagnosed with congealed fuel. The school district's fuel supplier was scheduled to drain all the biodiesel from the buses and storage tanks, and then refill them with premium diesel fuel. One official said the fuel might have been made from chicken fat instead of grain.
[Sources: Ese Isiorho / Ft. Wayne News-Sentinel & Rosemary Horvath / The Morning Sun]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Yikes 10:56AM (2/16/2009)
Interesting that Autoblog reported this story....yet Autoblog thinks Glenn Beck should "keep his mouth shut" and now report the same story.
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RickM 12:18PM (2/16/2009)
Yikes, that's the difference between ABG and, say, Faux news. The former attempts to tell the truth whethe or not it fits in with any given political agenda. And when they get it wrong, they publish a retraction - as they did in this case - see: http://www.autobloggreen.com/2009/01/27/school-buses-in-minnesota-were-i-not-i-stalled-because-of-bio/
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Mulad 3:51PM (2/06/2007)
Hmm, hadn't heard any reports of bus trouble here in Minnesota, and it was down around -20 degrees F on Monday morning. Apparently some schools did cancel classes for the day out of bus worries, though. A coworker of mine saw a news report about how the bus people deal with the cold, and it was a combination of keeping some buses indoors and letting others run overnight. I think the bus corral that's in my neighborhood has electric block heaters on most of its fleet, so that's another tactic. I'm not sure what percentage of biodiesel they're running, but it should be at least the state-mandated 2%.
Some folks on the TDIclub website have discussed how they use biodiesel in the winter. Apparently you can run it with concentrations as high as 80% in the cold, but that remaining 20% has to be kerosene. Definitely not something I'd recommend in newer engines ;-)
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Doug R 11:59AM (2/07/2007)
It surprises me that you wrote this piece Mike. You're not one of the "green" writers are you? Most of them would've ignored this story altogether.
I had a book on alcohol fuels back when it was the fad. This fuel had the same problem and needed a canister where fuel line coiled through and around a heating element. This would probably work. The author also wrote in detail about a carburator he designed using alcohol for his Ford pick-up that supposedly got 100mpg. Interesting book, I think it was "Brown's Alcohol Fuel Cookbook".
Keeping buses in a heated building or leaving them running all night certainly defeats the purpose.
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Mulad 10:39AM (2/07/2007)
I'd poked at this a little more, looking at some stories on Google News with this search: http://news.google.com/news&q=school+bus+fuel+cold
It looks like problems have been occurring in several areas. You mentioned St. Louis and Fort Wayne, Indiana. There have also been reports of trouble in the Chicago area of Illinois, New York state, and Pennsylvania. It seems that most places have blamed ultra-low-sulfur diesel. At least a few places are claiming that there's more paraffin in ULSD, which could be contributing to the problem.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07037/759716-258.stm
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