10 OCtOBER 2014 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www.fueloilnews.com
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type, (gasoline, diesel, heating oil, biod-
iesel and biodiesel blends) the fuel may
become victim of microbial contamina-
tion. Exercising a well thought out tank
management program is essential.
The technical community has debat-
ed two other issues specific to water
contamination. First, that lower sulfur
heating oil is not as miscible with water
as the higher sulfur fuels it is displacing;
allowing water to drop out of solution
to the bottoms of tanks where corro-
sion and microbial activity can begin.
Second, with the introduction of
blending biodiesel, there have been
reports of increasing problems associ-
ated with water. The addition of biod-
iesel to the fuel pool has been found to
contain no more water than conven-
tional fuels.
Regardless of the sulfur grade, fuel
blend or storage environments, fuel
handlers cannot ignore the need to
establish "prevent defenses" to mini-
mize water bottoms. With water and
temperatures come bugs. This battle
will go on well into the future and can
be won as long as the problem is not
ignored.
Finally, the author implies that some
fuel marketers are buying and sell-
ing biofuels that do not meet ASTM
specifications, e.g. straight cooking oil.
This is why our partners at the National
Biodiesel Board and our state leadership
groups have worked exhaustively over
the past decade to help train the mar-
ketplace about the difference between
raw vegetable oil or generic biofuels
and ASTM D6751 biodiesel. There may
be financial incentives for blending raw
vegetable oils or non-ASTM specified
fuels. Unfortunately, there is a small
percentage (hopefully a very small per-
centage) of these individuals willing
trade-off the risk of selling off-spec
product for a pricing advantage. The
NBB, NORA and the state association
can only inform those whom wish to
know the facts. With these facts, we
hope that the industry understands the
negative fallout associated with being
buyers and sellers of anything less than
ASTM grade fuels.
Our home heating systems are well
designed and robust. However, they
cannot operate reliably if attempts are
made to operate these systems with bad
fuels. The biodiesel industry recognizes
that their reputation can be damaged
by the marketing of low, quality, off-
spec fuels and they have put great effort
into developing programs such as the
BQ9000 Quality Assurance program to
address this.
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