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Health & Fitness

Simply Green's B20 Heating Oil Better, Greener than Ever

Beginning next week, Simply Green will offer its B20 blend – the company's greenest heating option – at a discounted rate to all contract-delivery customers who are also Green Alliance members.

It’s a welcome spring first for any New Englander: Waking up feeling warmer than usual, walking downstairs, and glancing at the thermostat to see the temperature at a few degrees higher than the preset.

Winter’s gone, spring has sprung, summer is finally on its way – the last thing you’re thinking about is the next time you’ll have to press the button with the upward-facing arrow.

For those not keen on fast-forwarding to winter, the folks at Simply Green, a Portsmouth company specializing in bio-based home heating oil: have a two-fold message for you: You can go green and save green, if you act right now.

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Beginning next week, Simply Green will offer its B20 blend – the company’s greenest home heating option – at a discounted rate to all contract-delivery customers who are also members of Green Alliance, the Portsmouth-based “green business union” Simply Green helped to found in 2008.

B20 heating oil contains 20% biodiesel, a significant uptick from Simply Green’s staple B5 blend.

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According to Joel Bobbett, Simply Green’s General Manager, incorporating B20 oil can help individuals reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by over 15%

“That’s the equivalent to planting 192 new trees annually,” said Bobbett. “Now imagine if 1,000 people made that switch. Ten-thousand? A hundred thousand? We’re talking about a significant impact.”

As if the reduced carbon footprint weren’t enough, customers that sign up with Simply Green can save $50 annually for every 500 gallons used, according to Bobbett.

While heating oil with higher biofuel blends have grown increasingly popular – particularly here in the oil-dependent Northeast – concerns as to the product’s effects on older, oil-burning equipment continue to linger.

In particular, many worry that the additives and detergents blended into the oil might wreak havoc on an older heating system.

Simply Green’s Assistant General Manager, Tim O’Neil, says that’s just not the case.

“When a system gets clogged, it’s because of the petroleum deposits from the oil that’s been in the tank ten, twenty, even thirty years,” O’Neil explained. “But so long as you start off with the B5 blend, give it a chance to slowly clean out the tank without the need to change the fuel filter, there’s no reason why you can’t make the switch to B20.”

New systems, on the other hand, are good to go.

“If the tank is new, you shouldn’t have any issues,” O’Neil said.

According to Bobbett, the additives used to treat Simply Green’s oil actually help them burn cleaner. Which is part of the reason why more and more people – from the manufacturers down to the individual consumers – are beginning to see B20’s green light.

“The quality has gotten better every year we’ve been in business,” Bobbett said. “More people are using it, telling their neighbors about – the early adopters have become a loud enough cheerleader that the message is starting to get through.”

Bobbett and O’Neil said Simply Green would be rolling out its 2013-14 lock-in price – for both blends – in the coming days.

Last fall, Simply Green opened a retrofitted storage unit, featuring two tanks totaling 193,000 gallons of space, in nearby North Hampton.

According to Bobbett, the 100% Biodiesel stored in the tanks – which are blended on site into either B5 or B20 – is sourced from within 150 miles of Portsmouth, making the product as local as it is environmentally friendly.

The increased capacity is no coincidence: Both Bobbett and O’Neil said their company has experienced substantial growth over the last few years, particularly with the B20 blend.

“As more people try it out and see how effective it is, without any modifications to the system, the word’s starting to get out,” O’Neil exclaimed. “Now the hope is that, by reducing the price even more, we’ll get even more people on board.”

 

Learn more about Simply Green at www.simplygreenbiofuels.com

For more info on Green Alliance, go to www.greenalliance.biz

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