Posted on 01/17/2009 6:10:57 AM PST by From The Deer Stand
Minnesota officials are coming to the defense of biodiesel after the Bloomington, MN schools cancelled classes when buses couldn't run in cold weather.
Classes were cancelled in the Bloomington School District on Friday when 12 of its buses wouldn't start. The problem was clogged fuel lines and filters.
First Student bus company blamed the problem on the biodiesel fuel required by the state but the State of Minnesota argued that condensation in the fuel tanks or lines was the culprit and not biodiesel.
If the school was indeed using a 2% bioDiesel and 98% dinoDiesel blend, there should be no problem at 0 deg F.
No.2 gels when it gets cold.
It may be a month before Minnesota sees 0 F.
My neighbor converted his van to biodiesel fuel. He has difficulty starting if the temperature is below 50 deg. F. Also, he noted that you have to preheat many components for the engine to run smoothly. It is an efficient system that leaves very little extra heat for the passenger compartment without augmentation by electric heaters. The problem is that the biodiesel fuel tends to coagulate.
The State of Minnesota must have a growing affirmative action program, and many awards for filling quotas, IMO.
Now I've got bragging rights -- and I *intend* to use them.
Cheers!
(Who's got the Minnesota Freeper Ping list?)
Chris Baker (100.3 FM KTLK) was ranting about the biodiesel on his morning show.
Someone needs to check the dew point and the relative humidity for the last couple of days.
Not much moisture in the atmosphere at -20o F and below (air temperature, not wind chill).
Cheers!
When all the vehicles around you are running and you are not, They are burning regular fuel and you are not. Chances are the fuel you are using aint cutting the mustard.
Must be all them french fries gumming up the fuel system.
Not much moisture in the atmosphere at -20o F and below (air temperature, not wind chill).
I’m betting at 20 below, #2 diesel is already at the gel point. Back in the day when below zero was more common, you know, before global warming, I was making a winter trip to UT across WY I-80 and the temp never got above about 20 below the whole way.
I have never seen so many big rigs sidelined because they had not put #1 diesel in the tank. They were lined up on the shoulder by the 100’s.
What you describe is a WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil) conversion. Running a diesel on vegetable oil which requires heating the fuel to over 160F to thin it out enough to get proper spray patterns at the injectors. Vegetable oil is not biodiesel.
Biodiesel will still gel, but how low depends on the feedstock. BioD made from Canola oil is the best, and will remain liquid into the mid 20s F. Blending down to B2 with winterized D2 or D1 should get you well below 0F.
I’m not saying that BioD wasn’t the cause... I think it likely was. I just wanted to clarify the difference between BioD and running on vegetable oil.
Uh oh. I imagine that would apply to my lawn mower, chain saw, etc. Is there any was to prevent it, like fuel stabilizer?
60 years from a Minnesota Granddad will be telling his grandkids, “I remember when it was so cold we had to walk to school 5 miles, uphill both ways when the bio diesel in the school buses froze. “
It will not do much for preventing the chemical change caused by the short shelf-life of ethanol in gasoline.
But, what about the children?? These enviroterrorists don’t care about the children.
Pray for W, Sanity and Our Troops
Cheers!
All diesel will gel that is why semi’s have tank heaters.
My farm tractor runs on B-20 and started perfectly well at -17 yesterday. Somebody at the bus company either forgot to plug in the block heaters or used the wrong anti-gelling agent.
Stabil Marine is directly marketed to address ethanol in gasoline.
Thanks for the clarification. I believe that my neighbor uses both a fuel heater and a fuel line heater. He filters waste vegetable oil that he gets from McDonald’s for his biodiesel system. The electric heaters draw power from the electric battery.
Sounds like the line from Monty Python's movie about the holy grail. I forget the exact line. I'm sure someone here knows it. Little that the Python group does will ever be forgotten by everyone!
I am still running gasoline engines (no ethanol blends, thanks, I hate clearing fuel filters on the side of the road at 30 below).
I have no doubt none of the buses utilize block heaters. If they had the chances of no problem starts would have been far greater.
If I may add
I use HEET (not isoheet) as it is straight METHANOL http://zenstoves.net/MSDS/MSDSHeet.htm
and it does an excellent job ‘pulling’ the water out of our auto fuel. It also makes a great fuel for your alcohol stove when camping.
AS an aside, alcohol
https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/89308.htm
is a polar protic solvent - and a good reason to use it in motor fuel for increased oxygen.
The down side is that all of the gunk that has built up in the fuel system - tank, lines, etc - goes back into suspension when alcohol/methanol is added to the tank. For E85 users - The product may also cause rusting of the fuel tank if it is not protected.
We treat our fuel year-around with HEET to avoid the build up of residue ion the tank/lines so when the ethonol fuel hits the pumps, we have few problems. We purchase our fuel from a station that filters the product at the pump for added protection.
AS they say, YMMV.
We used to put alcohol in the fuel tanks of our M-60A1 tanks. It made the water condensation combustible.
Yup - and in the real old days it was used as anti-freeze (think Model A and T). I had the oppotunity to drive/service M-48s for a few months - I believe the hull is the same as the -60.
Couple of weeks ago it hit -25 here in Anchorage, which I’ll admit is pretty chilly, and you could not find a jug of HEET to dave your life - or start your car.
We keep a dozen or so on hand for dose’n our fuel, so we could hel a few friends - I was shocked at the number of folks with dead autos and frozen/burst pipes.
Give me more of that Glowbull Warming.....
and the wind chill was????
Cheers!
I’m laughing my ass off about this, I manage and turn wrenches on a fleet of concrete mixers in Alaska and often I run my equipment at -20, we know all about what happens when you use the wrong fuel in Alaska.
But I guess the US is getting pretty friggin tired of Alaska.
Alaska, the state that seems to repetitively have most of the right answers.
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