Biodiesel and renewable diesel have likely been on your fleet customers’ minds for a few years now — their usage is certainly on the rise. Perhaps you’ve even started offering the fuels in some form. But did you know they can be blended together and provide even better emission reductions for your customers while maintaining strong performance?
Let’s break down the advantages of each fuel, and then we’ll discuss what happens when they are blended together. You may decide it’s a product your fleet customers will want.
Two Strong Options
Compared with ULSD, biodiesel has greater Cetane and lubricity, while its cleaner burn leads to fewer issues with diesel particulate filters. It’s also made from a wide variety of feedstocks, so its pricing and availability tend to be more stable.
The most common biodiesel blends range from B5 (which is 5% biodiesel and 95% petroleum diesel) to B20 (which is 20% biodiesel and 80% petroleum diesel). These are drop-in solutions that don’t require vehicle or fueling infrastructure changes.
Renewable diesel is made from the same feedstocks as biodiesel but goes through a different production process to create a clean fuel that’s chemically identical to petroleum diesel. It’s covered by the same ASTM standard as petroleum diesel, but it has higher Cetane and lower sulfur content and aromatics.
Each of these fuels emit fewer greenhouse gases than petroleum diesel, mainly due to their feedstocks. Across the U.S. in 2019, 2.3 billion gallons of biodiesel and renewable diesel were consumed, which reduced carbon emissions by 18.2 million metric tons.