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'Pour and go': Cleaner-btll~nin~ faol povrel°s ~ North Carotil~a <br />Durham school. biases <br />17arham is 1st sysien~i in state to use biodiesel <br />BY MICHAEL. PE.TROCELLI <br />The Herald-Sun <br />Monday, August i 1, 2003 <br />Deborah ,7ohnson remem <br />how she used to feel afte <br />day behind the wheel of <br />Durham school bus, inha <br />the thick diesel fumes he <br />bus belched out each tam <br />she stepped on the gas. <br />"You could taste it," she said. "It would be in your eyes, and you would <br />get sleepy." <br />But not anymore, she says, since the school system switched from all- <br />diesel fuel to one that is 2Q percent "biodiesel" a cleaner burning fuel <br />made from agricultural products. <br />Durham is the first school system in the state to try the environmentally friendlier fuel <br />in its fleet, and those who work with the district's 284 buses say the experiment so far <br />has been an unqualified success. <br />"We were all the time getting complaints from people, and we've have had no <br />complaints since we switched to biodiesel," said Henry Kirby, the schools' executive <br />director of transportation. <br />The schools are using a blended fuel known as B-20, which is four parts regular <br />petroleum diesel and one part agricultural product such as soybean oil or recycled <br />cooking oil. <br />Emissions tests have shown that even the 20 percent mixture significantly reduces the <br />amount of toxins diesel vehicles cough into the air. Advocates hope that its use by <br />large diesel consumers -Durham school buses travel 4 million miles each year on <br />600,000 gallons of fuel -will lead to cleaner air. <br />Durham School Buses (cont) I North Carolina <br />