[Biodiesel News] Alternatives to oil

Alternatives to oil
Maui News - Wailuku,HI,USA
... Biodiesel and ethanol are leading contenders. ... MECO now is soliciting contractors for testing biodiesel in its diesel generators at Maalaea. ...

KAHULUI

The best chance for increasing Maui Electric Co.’s proportion of renewable energy sources looks like alternative fuels rather than different technologies.

Biodiesel and ethanol are leading contenders. Garbage and perhaps methane derived from buried garbage are possibilities.

Right now, there’s not much biodiesel and there’s no local ethanol, and it remains an open question whether either fuel can be adapted to MECO’s generators.

If either could be, says President Ed Reinhardt, using these scarce biofuels in stationary generating plants is better than using them as vehicle fuel.

The reason is that autos are becoming more efficient, and they are replaced after a few years. Generating plants don’t get replaced often – MECO’s oldest was built in 1948 – because they cost so much.

While it is possible to get some efficiency gains from better operational controls on stationary generators, the simplest would be to change fuels.

MECO now is soliciting contractors for testing biodiesel in its diesel generators at Maalaea. It has 15 of them (and more on Molokai and Lanai), some producing as much as 12.5 megawatts.

Stan Kiyonaga, who manages MECO’s power production, says the utility has been using biodiesel at startup and shutdown of some of its diesels to address an opacity problem. That is, the engine coughs out smoke that exceeds Clean Air guidelines.

Mechanical fixes, such as forced air exhaust, didn’t work well, so MECO experimented with biodiesel just for the critical times.

That worked, but Kiyonaga says with biodiesel, which has more oxygen in it, it is harder to manage nitrogen oxide emissions.

“We have to be careful.”

There also may be maintenance issues. Diesels have to be rebuilt periodically.

But it might be possible to replace more, even all of the petroleum diesel with biodiesel.

Further out, MECO is considering if it could run its combustion turbines, which produce most of its electricity, with biodiesel.

There is the supply question. Pacific Biodiesel, which uses waste restaurant oil as its feedstock, has maxed out that source on Maui and has plenty of customers for its output already.

Both Maui Land & Pineapple Co. and Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. are investigating fuel crops.

HC&S already has one: sugar cane, which now provides biomass fuel but also could be turned into ethanol.

Most of MECO’s renewable portfolio always has come from bagasse: cane residue that HC&S burns to make electricity and sells to MECO. HC&S is moving toward producing ethanol from molasses, perhaps 5 million gallons a year. That likely would go to motor fuel since the state is requiring 10 percent gasohol for autos.

If HC&S converted its sugar to ethanol, its output might rise to 36 million gallons. But even that is a tiny fraction of U.S. ethanol output, now measured in billions of gallons.

Reinhardt says MECO gets frequent inquiries but has had no firm proposals from anybody for alternative energy sources, aside from Kaheawa Wind Power farm and another one to be built at Ulupalakua Ranch.

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Posted by Vince to Biodiesel News at 9/14/2006 05:23:00 AM