Biofuel on the buses

A council in the UK has been left red-faced after its ‘locally sourced’ biofuel buses were found to run on an imported feedstock.

Reading Council said the buses were run on sugar beet bioethanol sourced from Norfolk, northeast England, when in fact it has been running on wood pulp imported from Sweden.

The discovery only came to light when Reading Transport Board was discussing growing fuel costs. At the same time, the council told the board the bioethanol buses will be converted to biodiesel due to the price of inefficient bioethanol fuel.