This week some news articles have been flying around about B5 bio diesel. an article on Chron.com confirmed that that 15,000 barrels of B5 bio diesel have been piped from Georgia to Virginina and from Georgia to Mississippi.
This is the first reported piping of the diesel fuel blend. According to a 2007 law 1 billion gallons of B5 need to be injected into the nations fuel supply by 2012. Students in trucking schools and professional truck drivers should be prepared by the 2012 deadline.
This big announcement came from Kinder Morgan Energy Partners. A more complete article about this big step towards a change in diesel fuel use also ran in the New York Times Energy & Environment section on July 2nd, 2009. The article written by Kate Galbraith discusses a small issue regarding the possibility of biodiesel contaminating jet fuel that runs through the pipe line.
I think we know a about a work around for the issue of pipe contamination, that requires a tanker endorsement. Certainly in our current economic environment we could use a few more jobs, why not make them truck driving jobs!
The articles mentioned above can be found at:
Chron.com: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/energy/6505588.html
New York Times: http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/02/first-biodiesel-pipeline-starts-operations/

