GREAT POTENTIAL
The potential for reducing our reliance on imported crude oil, with the increased use of biodiesel home heating is substantial. Officials at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service in Beltsville, Md., estimate that if everyone in the Northeast used a B5 (5% biodiesel) blend in their oil furnaces, 50 million gallons of regular heating oil could be saved annually.
The Research Service has been heating its many buildings successfully with a biodiesel home heating blend since 2000. They started by burning a B5 blend, but in 2001, encouraged by the test results, switched to B20 without experiencing any problems.
Says John Van de Vaarst, Agricultural Research Service deputy area director, who is responsible for facilities management and operations. "I used to refer to biodiesel as an alternative fuel, but now I call it an 'American fuel, made by American farmers.' I think it's an obvious strategy to help clean up the environment and reduce our dependency on foreign oil."
Sponsored by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, N.Y. conducted its own series of tests on the use of biodiesel home heating for space heating.
That facility's 2001 test report found that biodiesel home heating blends at or below B30 can replace fuel oil with no noticeable changes in performance. Burning of the blends also reduced carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.
This information was found at www.making-biodiesel-at-home.com
As a heating oil
Biodiesel can also be used as a heating fuel in domestic and commercial boilers, sometimes known as Bioheat. Older furnaces may contain rubber parts that would be affected by biodiesel's solvent properties, but can otherwise burn biodiesel without any conversion required. Care must be taken at first, however, given that varnishes left behind by petrodiesel will be released and can clog pipes- fuel filtering and prompt filter replacement is required. Another approach is to start using biodiesel as blend, and decreasing the petroleum proportion over time can allow the varnishes to come off more gradually and be less likely to clog. Thanks to its strong solvent properties, however, the furnace is cleaned out and generally becomes more efficient. A technical research paper describes laboratory research and field trials project using pure biodiesel and biodiesel blends as a heating fuel in oil fired boilers. During the Biodiesel Expo 2006 in the UK, Andrew J. Robertson presented his biodiesel heating oil research from his technical paper and suggested that B20 biodiesel could reduce UK household CO2 emissions by 1.5 million tons per year.