Homebrewing not the only danger in making biodiesel: plant catches fire in Minnesota
Filed under: Biodiesel, Green Daily
We talked about the uncommon but still serious cases of fires caused by biodiesel enthusiasts making the biofuel in their back yard just the other day. Even at industrial facilities, though, making fuel isn’t exactly safe, and a fire at the Minnesota Soybean Processors Plant in Brewster, Minnesota forced local residents to evacuate their homes Saturday night. No serious injuries were reported, but the Deputy State Fire Marshall Investigator on the scene told local news station KSFY that the loss for the plant is substantial.”In this case, just by crunching mental numbers that we’ve been given we’re looking at this being a million dollar a day loss,” he said.
There are two upsides to the fire. 1.) the fire rescue teams apparenlty performed amazingly well and fast, and deserve their shout out. 2.) The National Biodiesel Board has emphasized their biodiesel safety recomendations, noting once again that, “With a flash point of 200 degrees, biodiesel is the safest fuel to handle, store and use.” Safe, but not fail safe.
[Source: KSFY Action News via Domestic Fuel, NBB]
Homebrewing not the only danger in making biodiesel: plant catches fire in Minnesota originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Wed, 27 May 2009 15:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Money’s not there for flex-fuel and other advanced technologies, automakers say
Filed under: Biodiesel, Emerging Technologies, Ethanol, Flex-Fuel
Here’s the thing: American automakers used to fully support E85-capable (aka flex-fuel) vehicles. With a few cheap additions to a standard engine ($100, or thereabouts), a car could get a special badge, drink corn (where available) and get the automaker a bit of goodwill, especially from politicians. The Auto Alliance often went out of its way to proclaim all of the flex-fuel vehicles its members were selling (see this PDF).
Today, things are different. There is talk of introducing a bill in Congress that would force half of the new vehicles sold in the U.S. to be flex-fuel capable, starting in 2012 (jumping to 80 percent in 2015). Interestingly, it’s not just gas ICE vehicles that would be affected. Diesel engines would need to be able to handle biodiesel, probably at higher concentrates than B5. Auto Alliance president Dave McCurdy wrote a letter to members of Congress last week to say that a mandate like this is a bad idea. Instead of the flex-fuel flood of vehicles of years past, McCurdy said that infrastructure should pace vehicle availability. “Mandates to produce vehicles for which there is inadequate fuels or fueling infrastructure should be opposed,” he wrote.
McCurdy’s other main point was that diverting limited automaker resources to making so many vehicles flex-fuel capable will divert resources from other advanced vehicle technologies. It’s not easy to make cars, is it?
[Source: Green Car Advisor]
Money’s not there for flex-fuel and other advanced technologies, automakers say originally appeared on AutoblogGreen on Tue, 26 May 2009 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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