Microsoft Chooses Biodiesel to Keep the Air Clean
Microsoft is in the midst of building a new data centre. Building, of course, means trucks and in this case trucks of cement. One problem, when those trucks use petroleum diesel, they spew all kinds of garbage into the air. Those chemicals and particles aren’t just bad for the planet in the long term they are bad for people in the short term. Solution to the potential workplace hazard? Biodiesel!
The construction company working on the new data centers approached Steve Verhey, the chief executive of Central Washington Biodiesel, with a problem earlier this year, he said. The company had built the shell, including walls and ceiling, of the 500,000-square-foot (46,451-square-meter), 11-acre building and found that laying the cement floor and finishing the rest of the interior presented a health and safety issue. That’s because cement trucks and other machinery that run on diesel and propane emit harmful exhaust into the enclosed space.
They wanted to know if biodiesel might solve the problem, Verhey said. The exhaust from biodiesel contains half the carbon monoxide of regular diesel, he said. In addition, one gallon (3.78 liters) of biodiesel lets off just 1.5 pounds (0.68 kilograms) of carbon dioxide, compared to 22 pounds per gallon for regular petrodiesel, he said, so biodiesel has a much smaller impact on the environment. Source: WinBeta.org Beta News and Reviews
Those stats are amazing. Think about how internal air quality can be improved in warehouses even fire stations (which have to employ sophisticated venting systems now because of truck exhaust). These are problems that can save real money. Now the big question is, how quickly can we get more trucking companies to use biodiesel and how fast can we get in in the distribution system?
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