Biodiesel makes the grade for New Jersey Schools

New Jersey's Medford School District plainly shows the advantages of using biodiesel in it's school buses. In a four-year test which began in 1997, the district had run half of its 44 buses on B20 biodiesel fuel and the other half on petroleum diesel.

In basic performance, says district operations director Joe Biluck, no differences were detected between the two groups of buses. Fuel economy and start-up ability were identical even in colder weather. Biluck says the B20-fueled buses seemed to idle more smoothly, perhaps because of biodiesel's greater oxygen content.

"From a fleet manager's point of view the integration was completely seamless," he says. Importantly, the biodiesel fuel emitted noticeably cleaner exhaust. With students gathering around buses every day, the heavy black smoke from petroleum diesel is a constant health hazard.

The Medford district is not covered by EPA act. Its biodiesel test was funded by a Heavy Duty Vehicle grant from DOE to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, Division of Energy Department of Environmental Protection, which will largely dictate the future direction of biodiesel in the district. "If I had my way, we'd start using it in all of our buses," says Biluck.