Farmers Provide Biodiesel Cred In Ford Country

The biodiesel sticker: a creature of a thousand faces that is becoming easier to spot on vehicles throughout the country. It comes in many forms from your basic “Powered By Biodiesel” to the more creative “Go By Grease,” and almost always it crops up on the bumpers of European passenger vehicles like VWs, Mercedes and Volvos. But while the average biodiesel user is depicted as a more socially conscious, urban dweller, biodiesel is slowly gaining traction with commercial diesel powerusers. And if you have any interest in seeing biodiesel become a mainstream alternative to petroleum fuels, you’ll want to read this article that describes a unique field study being led by the Iowa Soybean Association. The two-year study, called the “Two Million Mile Haul,” is examining the benefits of using biodiesel blends in the trucking industry. The results–as anyone familiar with biodiesel might assume-support the use of biodiesel in long haulers which represent “the largest single users of diesel fuel” in the country. Such a study–and others like it–should be considered a boost to the biodiesel industry. Though many Volkswagens and small diesel passenger vehicles will pepper the freeways in the next few years, a challenge for biodiesel proponents is to get light-duty truck owners to trust biodiesel. Now, with opinion leaders in the farm belt stumping for biodiesel, you can bet more Duramax’s, Cummins’ and Powerstrokes will have biodiesel running in their veins. And as light duty diesel trucks outnumber passenger diesels in the U.S. by roughly 10 to 1, it would be nice to see them join the party.