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cent," Huber said. A survey could help in "getting a sense how that material behaves in the field in the long term," Huber said. "That's important to know, because we obviously, as an industry, store product for extended periods of time." If higher-blend fuels coming out of production facilities have changed three months later because they've been in storage, Huber said, "would that somehow impact the operability of equipment? We want to make sure that if it does, it's known. On average our fuel is three months, four months old by the time it's blended"—and can be slightly older, maybe having been stored through a summer, Huber noted. "The material itself is going to have some aging before it's consumed," he said. Surveys of homeowners' tanks that have held biodiesel could help determine the state of the fuel that would typically be burned. The goal would be to convey the typical condition of that fuel to burner manufacturers so they can build equipment that would burn it efficiently, Huber said. There have been unverified reports that biodiesel with higher percentages of biofuel burns differently, Huber added. "There've been discussions about whether the flame looks a little bit differ- ent than our typical heating oil flame," Huber said. If so, "Will that somehow affect the cad cell?" The cadmium sulfide cell, part of the control system, senses the presence of the oil burner flame. The cad cell reacts to light from the flame. If it doesn't detect light, it shuts down the equipment. The question is, if the flame from fuel with more bio in it looks different, will the cad cell perform differently? Huber said, "It's worth making sure that it doesn't, and if it does, that the people in manufacturing know it" so they can "design against it." A survey could also collect important data on higher-bio blends—information that could be provided to Underwriters Laboratories, Huber said. "As we move to the higher levels UL is going to have to certify equipment," Huber said. For that, UL will develop a test fuel for use in the equipment it certifies, Huber said. "Our work will be to specify what that [test] fuel is so that the industry and UL knows what fuel needs to work and the equipment manufacturers know what fuel to test with their new products in order to win UL approval," Huber said. The test fuel, he said, "is supposed to be representative of what's really used." Huber added that since UL's focus is safety, "They're going to make sure that the fuel is the worst possible fuel that's reasonable to expect in a home. It may have a little water in it, it may have a little salt water in it. It may have aged a little longer." Huber said he expected that UL would scrutinize "B5 to B20." For NORA's part, conducting a survey to determine the quality of higher blends—B20 to B100—wouldn't be practical because they aren't much in use, Huber noted. "But I think we'll do some surveys of B20 users, see what that fuel looks like, and try to extrapolate it to the higher blends," he said. The method to test the higher blends could be "see what the B20 looks like after three months in storage, and put in some water or salt water"—to simulate the higher blends, Huber suggested. "We need the worst-case scenario because from an industry perspective, as we go to higher levels of biodiesel it's critical that we don't have any customer dissatisfaction," he said. The goal is "when we move to higher levels [that] it will be a successful movement and not one that backfires on us," he said. Surveying biofuel users and selecting a test fuel "will be a 2016 project" for NORA, Huber said. But then UL has to reach a consensus on the test fuel, he noted. "It's tough to speculate how long they'll take," Huber said. RESEARCH CONFERENCE A research conference is likely to be arranged and held in late spring or early fall of 2016, Huber said. "We have allocated money to do a research conference," he said. "It's important to the industry to have its technical progress evaluated," docu- mented and archived for later reference, he said. Subjects for presentation and discussion are yet to be worked out, as well as a location for such a conference. www.fueloilnews.com | FUEL OIL NEWS | JANUARY 2016 19 BUSINESS OPERATIONS