Audio with Kristin Duncanson, Minnesota Farmer, Chairman of the Minnesota Governor's Biodiesel Task Force, and  American Soybean Association and Minnesota Soybean Growers Association Board member.

In response to a request from the Minnesota Trucking Association and the Minnesota Biodiesel Council - the Minnesota Department of Commerce last month issued a 21-day suspension of the state's biodiesel fuel mandate. The move came after reports that soy-based biodiesel was clogging fuel filters - especially in extremely cold conditions.

Right now - that suspension of the state's biodiesel fuel mandate is slated to end on January 13th. And Minnesota biodiesel industry officials have been working hard to solve the problem. That's according to Kristin Duncanson - a Minnesota farmer who chairs the state's Biodiesel task force.

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Duncanson says the work done so far has identified excessive glycerin in soy biodiesel as one culprit in the fuel-filter clogging problem. She says biodiesel processors can fix that easily. And she says low-quality diesel fuel is also a suspect. But Duncanson admits - 10 days before the Minnesota mandate is supposed to go back into effect - the complete answer to the problem hasn't been found. 

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Still - Duncanson says - even if the complete answer to the fuel-filter clogging problem hasn't been found by Friday - the mandate should go back into force. She says the main reason for suspending the mandate - which she calls a variance - is simply to allow those with bad biodiesel to get fresh supplies that won't cause the problem.

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The Minnesota biodiesel fuel mandate went into effect in September. Minnesota adopted the mandate in 2002 - with the provision that it would go into effect only after the state biodiesel production capacity reached eight million gallons per year or more.