There are a few obstacles to overcome before Canadian motorists will see biodiesel mixtures offered at gas pumps.
Ted Stoner, regional vice-president of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute, said the fledgling industry needs to iron out some kinks before the fuel business entertains switching to biodiesel blends.
He told a collection of people attempting to form an industry working group in Saskatchewan that they should learn from mistakes made by the ethanol industry. Make sure all the technical issues are addressed before pushing for biodiesel to be incorporated into the retail fuel sector, he said.
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For example, while biodiesel reduces carbon dioxide emissions it drives up nitrous oxide levels, which is undesirable.
“There are some characteristics of the blended fuel which might have an impact on the diesel engines,” said Stoner.
Christine Paquette, executive director of the Biodiesel Association of Canada, said aside from the nitrous oxide problem, which is being addressed through research, there are few technical issues with the fuel, especially when blended at levels below five percent.
A bigger obstacle in her mind is the paltry amount of biodiesel production in the country.
“(Petroleum companies) are not about to commit to using biodiesel at a low level blend if they can’t get the supply,” she said.
Canada produces an estimated 4.5 million litres of the alternative fuel each year. If diesel sold at gas stations contained two percent biodiesel, that volume would have to grow to 500 million L.
Two plants under construction should help close the gap. Biox Corp. is building a 60 million L facility in Hamilton and Rothsay, a fully owned subsidiary of Maple Leaf Foods Group Inc., is spending $14.5 million on a 35 million L plant in Montreal. Both plants should be operating next year. That would vault the industry to 100 million L of capacity, one-fifth of the way toward meeting the federal government’s goal of 500 million L by 2010, part of Ottawa’s strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The short-term marketing plan for the growing supply of biodiesel is to encourage more government organizations to follow the lead of Toronto Hydro and Saskatoon Transit Services by using biodiesel blends in their transit and trucking fleets. But as capacity expands, the focus will shift to high-volume users.
“I think that biodiesel is going to be used and embraced by the petroleum industry,” said Paquette.
Stoner said the industry is doing a lot of the right things to make that happen, such as investing in research. But he hopes proponents don’t do what ethanol boosters did by pushing for the government-mandated use of biodiesel.
That would be a mistake because it distorts market realities and causes logistical problems. Fuel legislation is adopted on a province-by-province basis, which is problematic for the highly integrated petroleum sector that has pipelines supplying the same products from British Columbia to northern Ontario.
“You can’t carve out one particular province and say ‘I want something unique like a boutique fuel in Saskatchewan,’ ” said Stoner.
His final piece of advice to the biodiesel sector is to ensure the end product is cost effective. Members of the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute use a diesel lubricity additive that is anywhere from 1.5 to three times cheaper than biodiesel.
