An article in the New York Times’ Green Inc. blog, titled Biodiesel Congeals, School Buses Stall, very brilliantly states:
Biodiesel congeals at low temperatures, as John Jones, the transit director for the Summit Stage bus service in the Colorado mountains told me. He stopped using biodiesel in the winter after one of his buses filled with drunken revelers — and fueled by a biodiesel blend — stalled on the interstate in the middle of a frigid winter night.
First, you’re missing a comma.
Second, I can’t believe that an entire alternative energy solution would be abandoned after one night- especially if it was only “drunken revelers” that suffered (as opposed to bottle-fed puppies or the like.) That’s the U.S. for you. Brilliant in theory, squeamish in practice.
Third, any idiot with the internet and even a mild interest in biodiesel will have read that it congeals in winter. Of COURSE it does. People know this. About.com tells you. Hippies tell you. Biodiesel.org and make-biodiesel.org, two sites that I presume are all about biodiesel, tell you. Clearly. Google “about biodiesel in winter” and you get a plethora of helpful information.
If my unprofessional little ass can research it, while tabbing back and forth between my browser, a chat conversation with my father, and the entire five seasons of Daria, then surely John Jones, whose job it was to research this before he put it into action- presumably- could have Googled it as well.
I feel no pity for your drunken revelers.
I’m not a fan of biodiesel. I’d rather we look for a source of energy which didn’t require killing the earth. Or maybe we could kill two birds with one stone and solve our obesity problem too by walking to work or riding a bicycle or if we’re really fat and lazy, take public transportation. (It costs me $4, or 2 bus rides, to go to work and back. With today’s gas prices, even after they’ve dropped, I couldn’t drive for less than that.)
However, I loved how Minnesota officials were very quick to jump to the conclusion that it was the hippie fuel mucking up their bus system. The article’s writer updated her post to say:
UPDATE 1/23 12:10pm: The National Biodiesel Board emailed me to draw attention to a report released today that says that diesel, rather than biodiesel, what what stalled the school buses. The study was paid for by Yokum Oil, the fuel distributor. “We found that whatever was plugging the filters was not biodiesel, but a substance found in petroleum,” the brief report states.
