Posted on 01/16/2009 11:25:50 AM PST by Sopater
All schools in the Bloomington School District will be closed today after state-required biodiesel fuel clogged in school buses Thursday morning and left dozens of students stranded in frigid weather, the district said late Thursday.
Rick Kaufman, the district's spokesman, said elements in the biodiesel fuel that turn into a gel-like substance at temperatures below 10 degrees clogged about a dozen district buses Thursday morning. Some buses weren't able to operate at all and others experienced problems while picking up students, he said.
"We had students at bus stops longer than we think is acceptable, and that's too dangerous in these types of temperatures," Kaufman said.
About 50 of the district's 10,000 students were affected. Some waited at bus stops for up to 30 minutes; others were stuck on stalled buses.
Backup buses were sent out, but four of the district's 10 backup buses were also affected, Kaufman said.
Several students had to go to the nurse's office to warm up once they reached school and some returned home instead of waiting for buses that never came or were late, but there were no reports of students who required medical attention, he said. Transportation staffers were dispatched to make sure that there weren't any students left at bus stops.
The decision to close school today came after district officials consulted with several neighboring districts that were experiencing similar problems. Bloomington staffers tried to get a waiver to bypass the state requirement and use pure diesel fuel, but they weren't able to do so in enough time, Kaufman said. They also decided against scheduling a two-hour delay because the temperatures weren't expected to rise enough that the problem would be eliminated.
In 2005, a new requirement went into effect that all diesel fuel sold in Minnesota had to contain 2% biodiesel.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I feel bad for the kids in the cold.
that said...ROTFLMAO!
Oh, but just think of how much “global warming” that these non-operating school buses prevented! Probably gives Al Gore an orgasm.
What a buncha morons.
Fortunately for the kiddies Al Gore came along is his gas-guzzling stretch limo to pick them all up and take them for a dip in his heated pool so they could warm up. /s
Better dead children than to let the environmental movement suffer a setback.
Sieg, Heil!
ping
Same morons who appear to have elected Stuart Smalley to the U.S. Senate.
Who would have thought a foray by the legislature into the formulation of motor fuels would have had such adverse consequences?
I mean, what are the chances?
Fewer and fewer people have any idea what it means to live in a free country. Don't know what it is, wouldn't want it anyway.
Related Threads at:
Biodiesel fuel woes close Bloomington schools (Malfunctioning buses and very cold students)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2165802/posts
Bitter cold stops biodiesel buses closing schools in Bloomington
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2165707/posts
Lawyers know a lot more about fuel refining than engineers do. A lot more.
What???...Jeez....NO!
Not BIOFUELSTHEPLANET’SSALVATION!!!
My flabbers are completely ghasted. This just cannot BE! Green stuff is supposed to be sooooo much better because its so earnest and fervrently desired!
LOL
-4 here. My H2 is running just fine...
You know, I did a search for “biodiesel”... or was it “biodeisel”?... Hmmm...
oops.
Gee, only -21? I lived in the Twin Cities during the winter of 1996-1997, and remember mornings where it was -40.
Coming to a school bus stop near you, courtesy of Al Gore, Obama, and his Green Team of California Envirowhackos.
No problem for me, we’re DINKS.
They are saving a fish from drowning.
gubment is stooopid
More unintended consequences brought to you by Envirowackos.
Check the comments. Even the Minnesotans think the bio-diesel requirement sucks.
Burn food, not oil!!!
Al Gore
Liberals think just like teenagers. Glom on to the latest cool thing with no thought of the downstream consequences. It gets cold in Minnesota. Vegatable oils turn into goo when it gets cold. It shouldn’t have been difficult to put those to things together and come to a conclusion that maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
Did you have to walk to school barefoot and up hill - both ways?
This must have been some very stupidly written legislation for Minnesota.
This property of bio-diesel is well known. Even regular diesel has to be reformulated to remain liquid at the temperatures that Minnesota has been seeing.
It is just stupid that they would pass such a law in that part of the country.
“Gee, only -21? I lived in the Twin Cities during the winter of 1996-1997, and remember mornings where it was -40.”
And did you have to walk to school 10 miles uphill through snow drifts? Both ways?
Ah, kids these days ... they’re too thin skinned and spoiled.
Just busting on ya.
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