MichiganRadio

Start-up Hopes to Get More Bio-Fuel Into Americans' Gas Tanks DETROIT, MI (Michigan Radio) - Oliver Baer is standing outside a big white box at Next Energy in Detroit. That's an incubator for alternative energy businesses. Baer is the president of Clean Emission Fluids. The company hopes to bring its mobile filling stations to a town near you.

"We are standing in front of the Clean Emissions FAST unit - which stands for Fluids Affordably STored," he says, "and we have a number of fleet vehicles that are testing, in real-world applications, biodiesel."

Baer steps inside the box, which stores the bio-diesel.

"Now this particular unit is heated, so it's a constant 75 degrees all winter and all summer," he says. "And bio-diesel needs to be heated, or else if freezes."

The box is about a third of the size of a shipping container. Inside are a regular diesel tank, and tanks of bio-fuel from different sources. There's fuel derived from soybeans, from corn, and from pork fat. And the company is getting ready to start testing an algae-based fuel.

"You can actually deliver these units anywhere," Baer says. "Install them at a truck stop, install them at a fleet center, install them somewhere they don't do fuel, and you have an instant truck stop."

Baer says infrastructure is a big challenge for North America, "because there's so many different types of bio-fuels, there's so many different ratios. So truck stops are inundated by all these different requirements, without a very clear plan on what to do. Putting tanks in the ground are very expensive, and they have to store all these different fluids."

But infrastructure is just part of the challenge for getting bio-fuels into more gas tanks.

Quality is also an issue. And that's another hurdle Baer thinks his company has cleared.

The problem with some bio-diesel blends is that if they're not mixed properly, they can separate in a truck's gas tank - and cause problems in cold weather. But Baer says his system mixes the fuels to order before they go into the tank, and heats them so they bond together.

Dean Kelly is a driver for Art Van furniture. He's at the fueling station to fill his truck's tank.

"I've been running B-20 fuel in my truck for over a year," says Kelly.

Art Van is running some of its trucks on a blend of fuel that's 20 percent bio-diesel. Kelly says he hasn't had any problems - even in the winter.

Baer watches as Kelly punches in the fuel mix he wants, and begins to fill his tank.

"As he pulls the lever down, the pumps engage, and as the fuel's being dispensed, it's mixing the in this case the corn with the diesel fuel - and you can hear the pump spinning? - and that's changing based on the flow rate," Baer says.

Baer hopes more fleets will start using his fueling stations so his company can get the demand it needs to expand across the country.

If that happens, Baer says his company would be able to create new jobs in Michigan. And bio-diesel could move from boutique fuels people mix in their garages to standardized, reliable blends they could get at their local filling stations.

Contact Sarah Hulett at sarahhu@umich.edu © Copyright 2012, Michigan Radio