by Lani Flores
In a city council meeting held on Sept. 26, the Bloomington City council approved the purchase of a bio-diesel contract by Hennepin County.
The approved contract is said to lead to lower gas prices since there will be less petroleum to buy. In turn, shipping companies will spend less money on gas to ship their products around the country. Advocates say this will have economic advantages.
Bio-diesel is a mix of petroleum based diesel and soybean based diesel. Bio-diesel is about 20% soybean based and 80% petroleum based. A successful field trial in Hennepin County performed from December 1998 to April 2000 proved there to be no problems in using soybean based diesel as far as mileage, engine performance or storage of fuel.
