Washington Week: Student Voices (O)

Ohio State U. helps create a greener planet one bus at at time
By Jordan Galloway
The Lantern (Ohio State U.)
04/25/2006

(U-WIRE) COLUMBUS, Ohio — In 2003, Ohio State University Transportation and Parking Services began using biodiesel fuel in campus area buses in an effort to become more environmentally conscious. Today, more than a quarter of the buses are using biodiesel, which can be considered a step in the "green" direction.

"At some point everyone is going to have to use some product like this," said Steve Basinger, Campus Area Bus Service assistant director. "This decision was made in conjunction with the college of agriculture. They were the ones who brought it to our attention initially. It helps Ohio agriculture, so there are just a lot of different components that made it very much the right thing to do."

Denny Hall, assistant professor in Ohio State University extension county operations, said Ohio has more than four million acres of soybeans.

"It creates a new market for soybeans," Hall said. "It's going in to making fuel rather than making food, creating a new market for soybean growers — that new market being the biofuel market."

Bobby Moser, vice president of Agriculture Administration, said the main part of the soybean that is used is the protein, which goes to make livestock feed. That leaves leftover soybean oil.

"It just happens that we have a lot of oil, and it's really holding down the prices of soybeans," Moser said. "I don't know why we don't have more biodiesel production going on right now."

CABS uses B20 biodiesel fuel, which is 20 percent vegetable oil and 80 percent diesel.

Twenty-seven percent of CABS buses run on biodiesel. All buses were slated to begin running on biodiesel this July, but this date has been pushed back, Basinger said.

"Our timeline right now is somewhat being dictated (to) by fuel costs," Basinger said. "It's not a question of whether or not we want to do this because it's the right thing to be doing. That doesn't change, but what does impact that is how much."

CABS buys B20 fuel at $2.62 per gallon.

"With the whole global situation in the Middle East and everything, it would be much better to depend on our own resources than resources that may not be available to us," Basinger said.

Fear of voided warranties caused older buses to become test subjects early in the transition, Basinger said.

"We started in the beginning with the oldest buses until we were comfortable with the fact that this was not going to cause any engine damage," he said.

A new CABS bus costs $500,000.

B20 use is still in its infancy, and CABS has been able to find early positive feedback.

"We do know it did increase mileage a little bit," Basinger said. "It does clean the engines out. Initially we had to once, maybe twice, change the fuel filters depending on the age of the bus because it literally cleans the systems out."

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