Lane County gets out of biodiesel business
File photo By Associated PressEUGENE, Ore. (AP) - Lane Transit District is ending its yearlong test of 10 biodiesel buses, saying the alternative fuel was too expensive and caused maintenance problems. The transit district found biodiesel cost was an average of 5 to 16 cents more per gallon than conventional diesel. Because the high cost of conventional gas is causing the district to cut service, the added cost to test alternative fuel seemed unreasonable. "We want to have practices that are sustainable in the sense they're economically sustainable as well as environmentally," spokesman Andy Vobora said. Oregon-based SeQuential Biofuels provided biodiesel for the bus district. Co-founder Ian Hill acknowledged that cost concerns can be an issue. "You are buying a more valuable product than the petroleum diesel you're replacing," Hill said. "We're certainly working as hard as we can to bring down the cost of biodiesel, but we're being impacted like everybody else by a weak dollar and a strong export market." The district also said buses running biodiesel lost about 2 percent in miles per gallon while encountering fuel-filter plugging problems, but Hill maintains that one-time clogging issues are normal because biodiesel is a solvent. "We expect to see some fuel-system cleansing, which means there can be filter-clogging right up front," he added. "We recommend changing fuel filters immediately (upon switching to biodiesel) and we don't see that as a recurring issue." (Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) |
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