BULK PLANTS
Fuel Oil News spoke with Brian Savage , president of Savage Associates about storing and handling biodiesel and Bioheat products
BULK PLANTS
ENCORE :
HANDLING BIO AT YOUR RACK
Fuel Oil News spoke with Brian Savage , president of Savage Associates about storing and handling biodiesel and Bioheat products
by Keith Reid
The use of Bio and other alternative fuels can create some handling issues throughout the distribution infrastructure and bulk plant and terminal operations are no different in this regard . Preblended product at lower con centrations should provide few issues . But some marketers are doing the blending themselves or using fuels with much higher concentrations . Fuel Oil News spoke with Brian Savage , president of Savage Associates , for a rundown of the major concerns with the bulk plant storage and blending of biodiesel and Bioheat fuels . Founded in 1938 and headquartered in Bedminster , N . J ., Savage Associates internationally pro vides fueling infrastructure services to commercial , military and industrial customers .
FON : How much interest are you seeing in marketers getting BI 00 and blending their own biodiesel or Bioheat mixture ? Savage : In some cases the fuel will already be blended by the time it arrives in a bulk plant , but marketers can make the business decision as long as the incentives work out properly to blend it themselves . To get going you would likely need a 20,000 gallon above ground insulated tank , an immersion heater , auto controls , a recirculator , the supply line to the rack ( 4 ”), a 3 ” blending lines now being required for blends greater then 20 % to get you from Bl to B 20-a typical one like we just finished had four positions-and when you add things up including all the labor and concrete , you come out
Brian Savage
to about $ 500,000 . We ’ ve probably put in about 21 facilities like that . However , you have Sun , and Sprague and Global blending at their racks and you can pick up a blended product for your own storage tanks and not spend that type of money . You have to have a large enough through-putting arrangement through your facility to actually spend that kind of money .
FON : When considering biodiesel of Bioheat what are the major concerns a plant operator has to keep in mind ? Savage : Temperature , temperature , temperature . Temperature is one of your major influences and not just the temperature of the product , but the temperature of the product you ’ re blending it with whether it ’ s diesel fuel or heating oil . You have to follow some golden rules like never have a greater temperature differential than 20 ° F .
We had a driver say , “ Wow , you should see this thing floating in my compartment .” And what it was , was the B100 going into a cold compartment in the wintertime , losing its temperature and pour point and becoming a gooey mass and then when he filled it with the No . 2 oil , it floated up . That ’ s one of the things you run into . Golden rules . I don ’ t want to see any greater temperature differential in 20 ° F . You put hot B100 in your diesel fuel or No . 2 oil and the bacteria will love you . Two years ago we had an issue where a major supplier was loading product and blending B100 with No . 2 home heating oil at the rack and the temperature differential was between 40 ° F and 60 ° F and within two weeks over 80 accounts ran into outof-service problems because of rapid growth of bacteria .
And I do not want to see sequential blending . With sequential blending the accuracy of your blend is going to be off and the temperature differential will be that much greater , but people still do it . They say , “ I don ’ t have any problems .” How do you know you don ’ t have any problems ?
FON : What are some of the specifics for keeping that temperature differential in the 20 ° F range ? Savage : Ideally you want to keep your BlO0 at around 70 ° F . The manufacturer might load it at 80 ° or 90 ° F by the time it reaches a plant that might be down to 70 ° or 80 ° F , but an insulated tank maintains that temperature and helps keep operating costs down . We heat trace and insulate all lines that are going to see Bl 00 and follow that up with external thermostat controls . Sometimes you do not have to heat the whole line-just a section of the line-so you heat that section to minimize cost . And every single tank , above or below ground , will have a source of heat whether it ’ s a heat exchanger or an immersion heater . Even if you live in an oth erwise warm area , always provide for the worst-case scenario .
If you ’ re picking up a load of 7,700 gallons of B100 loaded hot at 90 ° F even with the standard trailer when it gets to the location a hundred miles away , it might have dropped in the dead of winter maybe 10 ° F to 15 ° F . So you get it into the insu lated tank and you may never have to use the immersion heater depend-
16 OCTOBER 2024 | FUEL OIL NEWS | www . fueloilnews . com