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www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | NOVEMBER 2014 39 HVAC/ HydroniCs tems. One of the areas under that theme that I am personally kind of interested in are tankless coil boilers, and is there a control strat- egy that can be used to make those more efficient and get those back as a low-cost, high-efficiency option for the future? FON: Is there anything specific that is currently moving into the planning stages right now? Butcher: There is a program opportunity notice that Nora is planning that should be out shortly, and I think that will provide a lot of exciting opportunities. Hopefully there will be some re- ally good proposals that come back. That is a major step forward; however, that is only the first. They're going to be a series of these, at least once a year, so if an important topic area is missed in the first one the opportunity will come around again. One of the things that the PON will call for will be the develop- ment of an oil burner that will go to B100. That is really exciting. FON: With the initial focus on lower percentage biofuels, why the push to develop a B100 burner today? Butcher: The work is underway now, in collaboration with the National Biodiesel Board, to get B20 considered at the next ASTM meeting, which I believe is in December. Everybody is hopeful that we will have a B20 fuel defined after that ASTM meeting which would be a major step. Where burners are con- cerned, developing a B20 burner would be nice, but I think the folks are restless in the sense that a B20 burner would not be a bold enough step. We're at a point where we should be eliminat- ing technical barriers to go to B20 and beyond. There are going to be a lot of factors that affect that— fuel prices, reliability, comfort, code approvals and things like that. But whatever we can do to get the technical barriers out of the way so that is not what is slowing us down, we should do that. FON: When you go to B100 burner what are some of the issues that manufacturers are going to have to consider? Butcher: There are quite a few folks out there, at least in the hundreds of buildings, that are currently using B100. There are certainly folks out there who feel that this is quite feasible technically with the products that we currently have on the mar- ket. But, to go from there to certified and fully approved prod- ucts I think requires careful consideration of materials, specifi- cally the elastomers and how well they are going to hold up over 15 or 20 years. That is an important consideration. FON: What are some of the fuel concerns as you move into the higher blends? Butcher: Up to B20 I'm not so worried. With a fuel you need to look at the temperature environment that you're going to be op- erating in. It's different in Maine then it is in Virginia, and you need to make sure that the fuel has the cloud point and the pour point properties that you need for that environment. And if you have outside tanks that you are delivering into you need to look at the fuel specs—diesel or biofuel blends—and make sure that you keep yourself out of a low-temperature problem. FON: What you think will be the timeframe as an industry for going to the market with B20 as a conventional product? Butcher:I think we're ready if we can get this ASTM B20 grade defined. That will help tremendously. However, it is going to take time for the market to change. Burners are changed out maybe every 15 to 20 years, and there is an awful lot of existing equipment out there that will change over time. So being ready to do it and having the technical answers complete is one step, but the actual transition of the market is going to take time. FON: What else should the industry be looking at as these appli- ances and fuels come to market? Butcher:With all this interest in high-efficiency appliances one of the things that's clear, having the follow-up associated with documenting the actual performance that's been achieved and communicating that to the world is important. There's a huge need to show that there are some really great oil options out there. It doesn't help to be modest here, and I think we may do that too much. l F o n