Sidebar by Allen Best
Agriculture – June 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Buses in Crested Butte were scheduled to start burning biodiesel in April after a winter devoted to using only petroleum-based diesel.
Biodiesel use was suspended for the season after bacteria in the winter fuel supply was blamed for clogged fuel filters which caused buses to breakdown at Christmas. But representatives of the oil company that supplied the faulty fuel have declared the problem fully addressed, with no return of recurrent problems, according to the Crested Butte News.
Biodiesel is also used in a 20 to 80 percent ratio with petrochemical diesel in the bus fleets at Breckenridge, Telluride, and Jackson Hole, and in snow cats at A-Basin and Aspen-Snowmass. And Breckenridge buses were also idled temporarily this winter by a bad batch of fuel.
That trouble has darkened the reception being given biodiesel in other ski towns.
Thus, the representative of another biodiesel manufacturer, Blue Sun, which is unconnected with those ski area problems, had to field skeptical questions when he showed up in Steamboat Springs to talk up biodiesel. But Blue Sun’s representative, John Long, acknowledged the problems at Crested Butte and Breckenridge, and traced them to the absence of standards dealing with the way alternative fuel is blended with petroleum-based diesel, according to The Steamboat Pilot.
Long went on to defend biodiesel as causing less pollution. While it’s possible that biodiesel emits more nitric oxides, Long said, it emits 78 percent less carbon dioxide. While some problems have been reported in converting to biodiesel, Long minimized them. Finally, he noted that the cost has come down in the last year, to just 10 to 15 percent more than conventional diesel.
Both Steamboat and Vail Resorts officials are reportedly considering biodiesel.
