Pacifica OKs biodiesel plan

Pacifica OKs biodiesel plan
San Mateo County Times - San Mateo,CA,USA
... re-affirmed Pacifica's reputation for alternative energy initiatives in a vote Monday night to move forward on installing a biodiesel production facility to ...

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PACIFICA — The City Council re-affirmed Pacifica's reputation for alternative energy initiatives in a vote Monday night to move forward on installing a biodiesel production facility to run the city's wastewater treatment plant.
The council voted unanimously to ask city staff to prepare a request for proposals to go out to more than a dozen California biodiesel production companies — anyone who would like to bid on installing a new vegetable-oil-recycling facility at the Calera Creek Wastewater Plant.

City officials said that up to six local companies had already expressed interest in building the production facility, which would convert fryer oil collected fromrestaurants throughout the Bay Area into biodiesel. Once converted, it would act like diesel, powering the wastewater plant's generators at peak hours and the city's own fleet of diesel vehicles.

Although cities like San Francisco and Berkeley have made strides in converting many of their own municipal vehicles to run on biodiesel, the idea of running a wastewater plant on biodiesel has no regional precedent, according to Councilman Jim Vreeland.

The project, conceived a year ago by Vreeland and Public Works Director Scott Holmes, is part of the city's effort to move toward freeing itself from a "petroleum-based economy," according to Vreeland. The city recently installed $3 million worth of solar panels next to the wastewater treatment plant for the same purpose.

"We saw the electrical crisis coming down the road, and this is another investment in our future," said Vreeland.

The project also makes good business sense. By generating its own energy at peak hours rather than relying on PG&E, the wastewater plant's costs would be reduced by up to $60,000 a year, according to officials. The business with the winning bid would agree to build the facility at no expense to the city, and sell the biodiesel at a discount.

In return, the city would let its wastewater filtration system be used for a secondary purpose: removing nitrogen oxide, a toxic byproduct of biodiesel production, from the veggie-oil production process.

According to a 2002 report on alternative fuel emissions, replacing petrodiesel with biodiesel in a vehicle reduces carbon monoxide output by 48 percent, hydrocarbons by 67 percent, and particulate matter by 47 percent. Nitrogen oxide emissions, in contrast, increase by 10 percent.

The technique proposed by Pacifica to remove the pollutant is so new that Vreeland said the city might look into patenting it. City officials will have to prove that it works before the California Air Resources Board will approve its use to power generators, which can release harmful air particles. Until then, the city plans to install a 2,000-gallon tank of biofuel as a backup power source for the plant; that doesn't require state approval.

But the entire project still faces the California Coastal Commission's approval process.

Pacifica is already home to a citizen-run biodiesel co-op, which has gained dozens of new member in the past year and a half. Two other biodiesel co-ops, one in San Mateo and one in Half Moon Bay, have sprung up in the past few months.

Between 2004 and 2005, American biodiesel production tripled to 75 million gallons, according to the National Biodiesel Board, a trade group. That number was projected to reach 150 million gallons by the end of 2006.

Co-ops are not the only part of the industry on a growth trend. James Justice, co-owner of two Bay Area companies that pick up recycled fryer oil from restaurants, estimated that the Bay Area produces about 5 million gallons of veggie oil a year. Three new biodiesel production companies set up shop in the area in the past five months, he added.

"It's a grassroots sort of thing. People are doing this from the bottom up, not the top down," said Justice. "People are realizing that every gallon of biodiesel consumed is one less gallon that we have to buy across the ocean."

Justice's companies, A Cleaner Earth and Blue Baiyo, are partly owned by Bay Area Biofuel, a Richmond-based production facility that Justice said was keen to win the Pacifica contract and relocate all its operations to the wastewater treatment plant.

The city will take the next few months to review the project bids it receives with the goal of beginning construction In January 2007.

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