Biodeisel benefits

Last week I mentioned that VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is an idea whose time has come, despite concerns raised by some security professionals.

Another new—or newish—idea that is making great strides in recent months is the idea of biodiesel.

Biodiesel has been on the market for a while now, although lack of widespread availability has resulted it much of it being used in blends with petroleum diesel. B20, for example is 20 per cent biodiesel; B100 is the pure stuff.

As more production plants come on line, and as the distribution network expands, you’ll hear even more about biodiesel. And as more operators discover the benefits of biodiesel, demand is already increasing.

Biodiesel is simply processed vegetable oils—sometimes blended with animal fats, including used cooking grease from restaurants—with soybeans being the most common feedstock. Biodiesel has been widely used in Europe for more than two decades. In the United States, use of the stuff has grown dramatically since it was first introduced commercially in 1998. Now it is being used by the U.S. Postal Service, the federal departments of energy and agriculture, and both the army and the air force. As well many local transit and public utility companies are using it.

In Canada, many municipalities are experimenting with biodiesel for public transit, and other fleet users are showing interest. The fleets don’t necessarily have to be fleets of buses or trucks, though. Think of a fleet of machines used by roadbuilders, or the numbers of backhoes and other diesel-powered equipment you see around jobsites. So, yes, biodiesel holds out some promise for the construction industry, too.

Biodiesel is non-toxic, biodegradable and sulphur-free. It emits 80 per cent fewer hydrocarbons, 60 per cent less carbon dioxide and 50 per cent less particulate matter than petroleum diesel, while increasing engine life without sacrificing performance.

There is an up-front cost, to be sure, since biodiesel is likely to cost you three to six cents a litre more than conventional diesel, but against that you must calculate lower maintenance costs and environmental benefits. Do that, and biodiesel might turn out to be worth your while.

A sure sign of rapidly increasing interest is the immense growth in the number of websites containing information about biodiesel. When I first wrote about it two years ago, I found only a hundred or so sites. Now, if you ask Google to search for biodiesel, it will return almost 6.4 million hits.

Some of the sites are pretty dubious, but some are excellent. Two of the best I have found are Canadian. Bio-Diesel Canada Inc., bills itself as “Canada’s largest supplier of biodiesel,” and there is plenty of solid information on its site. Point your Web browser at www.biodieselcanadainc.com. Another good site is run by Biox Corp., which hopes to make its mark in the industry as a turnkey supplier of plants and technology for producing biodiesel.

The company has been operating a pilot plant with an annual capacity of a million litres a year in Oakville since April, 2001. In the process, it claims, it has proven that the company’s unique process is about 40 per cent cheaper in capital cost and more than 50 per cent cheaper in operating cost than other biodiesel processes.

Now it is about to open a new, commercial-sized plant in Hamilton. That plant will be capable of producing 60 million litres of biodiesel a year, and will increase North American production by 50 per cent. Even though you won’t be dealing with them, it’s worth visiting their website, which is at www.bioxcorp.com.

There’s also a lot about biodiesel on the site operated by the Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (www.greenfuels.org.) You may also want to visit a couple of good American sites, so try www.biodiesel.org, which is a trade association, or the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency site at www.epa.gov/otaq/models/biodsl.htm.

Korky Koroluk is an Ottawa-based freelance writer. Send comments to editor@dailycommercialnews.com