B20: A fuel blend of 20% biodiesel and 80% petrodiesel. Commonly used in fleets.
B99: A fuel blend of 99.9% biodiesel and .1% petrodiesel offering the highest biodiesel content at the best price. The .1% petrodiesel is only added to satisfy federal requirements for a biodiesel tax credit to make the price more affordable to users.
Biodiesel: A clean-burning, renewable fuel made from vegetable-based oils like canola that meets ASTM D 6751 specifications. It produces substantially less CO2 and particulate emissions than petroleum-based diesel while offering benefits to engine performance. Biodiesel also offers the promise of increased independency from foreign oil.
Canola: The high oil yield plant that can be used for biodiesel fuelstock. Through a refining process, canola is crushed and the oil is reacted with methanol to produce biodiesel.
Carbon Emissions: The amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. For example, Propels Pureformance 99 emits 78% less lifecycle carbon than fossil-fuel based petroleum diesel, thus producing less greenhouse gases.
Carbon Neutral: Effectively offsetting or reducing carbon emissions to the point where personal or corporate impact on the atmosphere equals zero.
Cetane: Commonly abbreviated as CN, it’s a measure of the combustion quality of diesel fuel during ignition.
CleanDrive: Propel’s free, innovative fuel reporting program that allows participants to track their carbon reductions and see the positive impact they’re making by choosing cleaner-burning biofuels.
Clean Fuel Point: Propel’s own conveniently located biodiesel fueling stations that make finding and filling with clean-burning, ASTM-certified biodiesel easy for daily drivers.
Cold Filter Plug Point: The temperature at which fuel crystals cause a fuel filter to plug (commonly referred to as gelling-up).
Ethanol: A fuel made from corn or sugar cane. Blends of 85% ethanol (E85) can be used in a FlexFuel vehicle now offered by many vehicle manufacturers. Lower blends of ethanol (10% or less) can be used in any common gasoline engine.
Fuelstock: The primary raw material required for processing fuel.
Flash Point: The lowest temperature at which a volatile oil gives off a vapor significant enough to ignite in air. As a comparison, biodiesel’s flash point is about 392° F, while petrodiesel is about 158°F, making biodiesel much safer to store, handle and use.
Fossil Fuel: Any fuel derived from non-renewable resources. These include petroleum, coal and methane all of which emit high levels of carbon dioxide into the environment when burned.
Fuel Filter: A screening component in the fuel line that filters dirt and particles from the fuel prior to igniting.
Lubricity: The chemical action of an oil to effectively reduce friction within an engine’s moving parts. Biodiesel, for example, provides better lubrication than petrodiesel. This can improve engine life.
Methanol: The agent that reacts against a fuelstock like canola oil during the refinement process. This reaction produces biodiesel and a glycerol byproduct.
Particulate Matter (PM): Unburned particles emitted into the air which can cause respiratory diseases and cancer. Biodiesel commonly offers 50% less particulate emissions than petrodiesel.
SVO (Straight Vegetable Oil): Pure vegetable oil (like peanut oil) can be run in a modified diesel vehicle. SVO is much thicker than biodiesel thus, diesel vehicles require a conversion before SVO can be used.
WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil): A fuelstock (often waste from restaurants) that require a filtration process before they can power a diesel vehicle. Like SVO, WVO-powered vehicles require conversion.
More About Biodiesel
Web Resources
- National Biodiesel Board
- National Renewable Energy Lab
- US Department of Energy
- Puget Sound Clean Cities Coalition
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