Minnesota diesel gets soy power boost

Minnesota diesel gets soy power boost
Updated: 5/1/2009 9:24:43 PM

Saint Paul, MN -- If you're burning diesel fuel in Minnesota you're now getting more soy in your diet.

On Friday the state moved to B-5 biodiesel, a diesel blend containing five percent biofuels derived primarily from soybeans. The move comes four years after the state mandated B-2 biodiesel, a two percent blend, in all diesel tanks.

"For state and national energy policy it is extremely important we move to less dependence on imported foreign oil," Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture Gene Hugoson told reporters at a news conference marking the B-5 milestone.

What was especially remarkable about the B-5 roll out is that the state's trucking industry was part of the show. The organization that represents truckers wasn't a big fan of this alternative fuel in its infancy.

"Trucks have to have a quality consistent fuel to keep them running," Minnesota Trucking Association president John Hausladen said Friday, "Due to the diligent work of the biodiesel manufacturers and distributors in this state the Minnesota Trucking Association is confident we will have no operational problems as we move to the B-5 mandate today."

He said ideally biodiesel would be implemented nationally with uniform standards as big rig operators cross state borders. Minnesota lawmakers were the first to okay biodiesel in 2005. Since then Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, New Mexico and Massachusetts followed suit.

Farms and Skies

A Holiday store in Eagan served as the backdrop for the event, but a soybean field wouldn't been equally appropriate. The state's soybean farmers stand to gain a lot from the move from B-2 to B-5, something Hugoson said will be good for the rural economy in tough times.

Clean air advocates also were happily inhaling the news.

Kelly Marczak of the American Lung Association of Minnesota said the higher bio fuels standard would remove huge quantities of carcinogens and lung irritants from the skies.

"This action will prevent 139 tons of particulate pollution and 330,000 tons of life cycle carbon dioxide emissions from entering our air each year," Marczak remarked.

She said that was the equivalent of removing 55,000 passenger cars from the roads, or adding 56,000 acres of pine forests. Those pine trees tend to capture and store carbon, keeping them out of the atmosphere.

Reliability Factor

The trucking industry's decision to back B-5 is based in part on the successful experience of fleet operators across Minnesota who've burned B-5 and higher blends. The City of Brooklyn Park, for instance, started burned B-20 blends years before B-2 became the rule.

The City of Saint Paul has had very good results with the homegrown, renewable fuel. The 225 diesel burning vehicles in the city's fleet already run on B-5 and B-10 in warmer months.

"We run it in everything from light pickups, off-road vehicles, street sweepers, heavy trucks," maintenance garage supervisor Ron Mundahl told KARE Friday, "It hasn't been a problem for us at all, and they've all run and performed the way they did before we use any biodiesel."

The Bloomington Public Schools system learned the hard way last January that biodiesel can gel, or thicken up, in extremely cold weather and clog up the fuel filters. The district's stalled buses made the news at the time, but the state says it was more of problem with the orientation of the fuel lines in certain buses.

In Saint Paul, Mundahl explained, the gel issue normally occurs only with vehicles that still have summer blends in their fuel tanks when winter arrives. He said it can be managed with additives.

"When we know that's happening we put an additive right in the tank of the truck, and it usually takes care of the problem before it becomes a problem."

The same law that ushered in biodiesel in Minnesota mandates B-10 by the year 2012 and B-20 by the year 2015. Those standards will be more flexible, allowing lower blends to be sold in the coldest months.

By John Croman, KARE 11 News
(Copyright 2009 by KARE. All Rights Reserved.)