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Biofuel benefits city's vehicles

Project's finding may spur switch

By: Bartley Kives

Posted: 01/24/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

Fuel partly derived from low-grade canola or spoiled crops could wind up in the tanks of all city-owned diesel-powered vehicles after a biodiesel pilot project showed city vehicles are more efficient when they run on the environmentally friendly fuel.

Winnipeg is close to completing a two-year alternative-fuel study that involved 20 city vehicles running on a mixture of 90 per cent conventional diesel fuel and 10 per cent biodiesel derived from U.S. soybean crops.

The $600,000 study, which concludes in March, already suggests city diesel trucks can run up to five per cent more efficiently on biodiesel than vehicles with ordinary diesel in their tanks -- even in the middle of a harsh Winnipeg winter.

"If we can do it in Winnipeg, you can do it anywhere," Winnipeg Fleet Management Agency head Yvan Lupien said as the city, provincial and federal governments invited reporters into Winnipeg's biodiesel-fuelling facility on Pacific Avenue.

Unlike ethanol made from food-grade crops, biodiesel is considered a genuinely green fuel because it can be made from waste products such as low-grade or blighted crops, used cooking oil or possibly even algae.

Though corn-based ethanol offers minimal climate-change benefits because it takes almost as much energy to produce as conventional fuel, canola-based biodiesel requires up to 16 times less energy to create, provided it comes from waste products or low-grade crops, said Jim Rondeau, Manitoba's science, technology and energy minister.

Manitoba is expected to require biodiesel to be blended into all provincially sold diesel fuel sometime this year, as biodiesel plants are under development in St. Boniface, the Interlake town of Arborg and just outside Beausejour.

That could make any city decision about biodiesel use in its own fleet a moot issue. Winnipeg Mayor Sam Katz said he's excited by the technology, which he said reminds him of science- fiction scenarios from cartoons.

"Twenty years ago, we could only dream about recycling waste into fuel," he said.

Before Winnipeg began testing biodiesel, the Fleet Management Agency expected the fuel to be two or three per cent less efficient than conventional diesel. It wound up providing superior lubrication to city vehicles and did not require fuel filters to be changed as often as expected, said Lupien and project manager Ajaleigh Williams.

The combination of lower energy inputs, increased fuel efficiency and easier maintenance makes biodiesel extremely attractive, they said.

Research into deriving biodiesel from algae may make it possible to create even more efficient blends in the future, said Arne Elias, director of the University of Winnipeg's Centre for Sustainable Transportation.

But it does not seem likely Manitoba will be able to kill two environmental problems with one stone by collecting Lake Winnipeg algae for biodiesel-production purposes. Algae used for biodiesel research is grown in closed tanks or open ponds, not harvested from the wild, Elias said.

- With files from Larry Kusch

bartley.kives@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 24, 2009 B3

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