Beam me to Planet Gore !
Bloomington is a southern (and first-ring suburb) of Minneapolis. It's also one of the 5 largest cities in the state. I know it well. I grew up and went to high school there.
It seems like only a small number of students were affected by yesterday's bus trouble. But given the terribly cold weather (which I may add, is a fact of life in Minnesota), it was probably safer to cancel school entirely than risk lives.
It certainly looks that, for all of its benefits, that biodiesel fuel may not be the answer in certain climates.
Comments or opinions - anyone?
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I read where one of the airlines are using the bio fuel. How can that be at such high altitudes?
Kids are different these days. Article sez state-required biodiesel fuel clogged in school buses Thursday morning and left dozens of students stranded in frigid weather. Stranded? Because the school bus was late? Kids stood around and shivered, waiting patiently? School bus more than 3 minutes late, I was outa there.
Might be nice for folks to know the names of those who required this.
I think this is a good lesson to kids that idealism doesn’t always bow to reality.
If they're using 5% bio, I'd blame the people who didn't additize the fuel properly, not the bio. >30% bio probably isn't a great idea in very cold temperatures.
Both mineral and bio-diesel fuel will “gel” (more accurately, “cloud”) in deep sub-zero temps.
The issue with biodiesel is more severe, but it also matters how good the quality of the biodiesel is. Crappy biodiesel gels quickly, and the better quality stuff holds up about as well as #2.
#2 diesel fuel will start to cloud somewhere between -10F and +5F. Somewhere in there. There is no strict specification for when it should cloud to which refiners adhere. Here in Wyoming where it can get pretty cold, most diesel you buy at a fuel station will have #1 diesel, or kerosene, mixed into the fuel in varying proportions, starting in December. By this time of year, some fuel stations are pre-mixing about 40% #1 into the fuel you’re buying. This reduces clouding problems, but it also cuts the BTU content of the fuel you’re buying. TANSTAAFL.
Summary: it isn’t just biodiesel that has problems in sub-zero weather. It is diesels period. And unless the bus mechanics mix some #1 or other anti-gel additive into the fuel, it will cause problems in this weather. Some enviro-twink probably insisted on pure biodiesel to make a point.
Man, liberals lampoon themselves:
(1) Biodiesel/biofuel hailed as answer to the “crisis” of GLOBAL WARMING;
(2) State mandates biodiesel/biofuel for school buses;
(3) [Pause here for reality to intrude];
(4) Buses fueled with biodiesel can’t run because it’s TOO COLD.
AGW cultists may end up putting The Onion out of business.
Regular diesel does this as well. There’s some additive that has to be added in the winter. It’s not the fault of biodiesel.
I have a Duramax diesel for my personal vehicle and I drive over 3000 miles per month across, Minnesota, N. Dakota and Montana, so I see the need for extra care in what kind of fuel I use. Apparently, these idiots did not think that using vegetable oil substitutes would make a difference in sub zero conditions. (Zero as in Obama.)
Imagine risking the safety of children to “prove” their “Green” agenda. In conditions like this, bio diesel turns to peanut butter, while expensive #1 diesel flows like wine and burns like jet fuel no matter how cold it gets.
The idiots get what they deserve. They should have had enough experienced mechanics, etc, on staff that would have put their foot down to correct this stupidity and protect the safety of these children.
Believe me, in these kind of conditions, it is life threatening when a vehicle stalls. These children are loaded onto a very warm bus and are lightly dressed, with no emergency survival equipment. When the engine quits, it only takes a few minutes to turn sub-zero inside the bus.
But these arrogant Leftists will still ignore their ignorance and keep pushing their “Green” agenda in spite of the safety of our children. This has to stop.
The loggers up here were bedeviled by this problem. So much so that the state finally granted them an exemption to this requirement. Otherwise they would have had to shut down for the winter, and probably forever.
There are benefits to biodiesel? In relation to what?
Law of unintended consequences often leaps up to bite politicians. But it’s the little people (kids) that got to suffer from this one.
Reminds me of some of the things that were tried as gasoline substitutes in automobiles during WW2 when we got 3 gallons of gasoline per week. A lot of farmers and others tried casing head gas (condensate) in their fuel tanks with interesting results.