news-record.com

GREENSBORO — The tank farm in western Greensboro is expanding into biodiesel with modifications that will make it the only terminal in North Carolina to offer both traditional and alternative diesel fuels.

The project is being paid for jointly by a state government initiative supervised by the N.C. Solar Center and by World Energy Alternatives, a Boston-based marketer of alternative diesel fuels.

World Energy plans to retrofit a 172,000-gallon, storage tank at the Petroleum Fuel Terminal on West Market Street so that it can store B100, a brand of diesel made from such agricultural feedstocks as soy beans, canola and animal fats.

It should make cleaner burning, less polluting biodiesel fuel more widely available in the Triad because it will open the market to distributors who lack their own specialized storage facilities, said David Shiflett, World Energy vice president.

North Carolina’s Clean Fuel Advanced Technology program, administered by the Solar Center at N.C. State, is paying $150,000 of the $250,000 retrofit.

Increased use of biodiesel in North Carolina "can help us reduce our reliance on imported oil, stimulate economic development and improve air quality," said Anne Tazewell of the solar center, based in N.C. State’s college of engineering.

The storage-tank project should be completed and dispensing biodiesel in several months, Shiflett said.

Contact Taft Wireback at 373-7100 or twireback@news-record.com