Biodiesel Fleet Trials and Adoption
December 24th, 2005 - by admin
From Green Car Congress
The number of organizations either testing or just adopting various blends of biodiesel continues to grow. Among the latest are:
- The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) is running a biodiesel Pilot Fleet Program at its maintenance facilities in Knoxville and Johnson City. During the pilot program, more than 130 on-road vehicles including dump trucks, snowplows and HELP trucks will use a soy B20 biodiesel blend. The department plans to include off-road construction equipment in the study early next year.
- The Manatee (Florida) County School District is now using a soy B20 blend to power its fleet of 254 diesel buses and 50 other diesel vehicles. The district began testing the fuel on Nov. 12.
- TriMet, the transit agency for the Portland, Oregon, Metro area is testing a B5 blend in 75 of its LIFT buses, which provide door-to-door service for the elderly and people with disabilities. Tests will run until next spring; if everything works out, they will convert the remainder of the 135 LIFT buses and consume about 70,000 gallons of biodiesel a month. The next step would be to look into the feasibility of converting its 611 regular buses. TriMet will get its biodiesel from Carson Oil, which plans to begin buying from the new SeQuential Biofuels plant in Salem.
