Use of biodiesel fuel on the increase

Use of biodiesel fuel on the increase
Cleaner-burning fuel now competitive with regular diesel

Bruce Constantineau
Vancouver Sun

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Two years ago, six Lower Mainland municipalities took their first tentative steps toward using cleaner-burning biodiesel fuel for their vehicle fleets, consuming a combined total that year of about 10,000 litres of the environmentally friendly fuel made from vegetable oil or animal fat.
There are now more than a dozen municipalities using some form of biodiesel blend in their fleets, and total consumption is expected to be around two million litres this year.

That's still just a tiny drop in the total fuel-consumption bucket, but with conventional fuel prices rising, biodiesel is no longer 30 cents a litre more expensive than regular diesel. The two fuels are now very similarly priced.

"Now it's cheaper to be green," said Fleet Challenge Canada president Dennis Rogoza, whose organization promotes the use of cleaner-burning fuels.

Besides the municipal biodiesel program -- which includes the City of Vancouver's fleet of about 2,000 diesel vehicles -- there are test programs underway at BC Hydro and TransLink. Several private companies have also switched their fleets from regular to biodiesel fuel.

Rempel Bros. Concrete made the move about two months ago, while shipping terminal operator TSI Terminal Systems Inc. -- which runs Deltaport and Vanterm -- says it is the first company of its kind in Canada to make the switch. TSI maintenance manager Darcy Vaillant expects the move to reduce emissions by about 30 per cent this year, and 40 per cent by 2007.

TSI uses a 20-per-cent biodiesel blend -- a mixture that is 20-per-cent biodiesel and 80-per-cent regular diesel -- in its 227 diesel engines on container-handling equipment at the two ports.
"We weren't looking to save money, because it was going to cost us more [to make the switch]," Vaillant said in an interview. "But with regular fuel prices going up, the cost is about the same."
Rempel Bros. operations manager Stephen Szalkai said a biodiesel blend is currently being used to fuel 13 concrete mixers, one pump truck and one loader. If the test program goes well this year, the fuel will be used on the company's entire fleet -- including 100 mixers, 17 pump trucks and 14 loaders.

"If it remains competitively priced with regular diesel, it will be a no-brainer decision," he said. "I just think it's the right thing to do."

Skeptics fear biodiesel could lower a vehicle's performance levels, or create unwanted maintenance problems. But Vaillant said TSI hasn't experienced any problems with its 20-per-cent blend. He noted the low-sulphur diesel fuels produced today don't have the same lubricating qualities as fuels produced years ago.

"Biodiesel is a lubricant, so it can actually help engine performance," he said. "We were losing fuel pumps on some of our diesel engines due to the low-sulphur diesel, but since we have gone with biodiesel, we haven't had one go yet."

Vaillant hopes TSI can switch to 30-per-cent and 40-per-cent biodiesel blends later this year, and experience even greater emission reductions, if no performance or maintenance issues arise.

Szalkai said Canada has lagged far behind the U.S. and Europe in the use of alternative fuels, and he hopes that's about to change.

"Maybe this is a start," he said. "If a big industrial fleet like ours can make it work, I think people will take notice and realize it's economically viable and the right thing to do environmentally."

Canadian Bioenergy Corp. chief executive Ian Thomson, whose company is a wholesale biodiesel supplier, expects biodiesel consumption across Canada will grow from about three million litres last year to eight million litres in 2006.

"Three years ago, most people had never heard of biodiesel, or if they had, they thought about people taking grease from behind McDonald's," he said. "But now there are huge refinery-scale plants in the U.S. that use virgin soybean oil [instead of recycled oil]."

Canadian Bioenergy, based in North Vancouver, currently imports biodiesel fuel from the U.S., but it announced plans last year to build a commercial production facility in Western Canada capable of producing 40 million litres a year.

Rogoza said the biodiesel industry will receive a tremendous boost if the federal government ever follows through on plans to force minimum blends of five-per-cent biodiesel fuel to be sold throughout Canada.

"Then we would move from total annual biodiesel consumption of eight million litres to about 500 million litres. So it would become a mainstream fuel," he said.

bconstantineau@png.canwest.com