Biodiesel has passed a cold weather test with flying colours, paving the way for the federal government to bump up its mandate by two years, says the Canola Council of Canada.
A 10-month-long demonstration project in Alberta involving long-haul trucks has shown there are no operability issues with various biodiesel blends.
“The time has come for the government to take this (data) and move as fast as they can,” said council president JoAnne Buth.
But Canada’s trucking and petroleum industries are asking Ottawa to take a more cautious approach. They issued a joint news release saying a lot more work needs to be done before any regulation is finalized.
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There are lingering questions about how the fuel will perform in new engines to be introduced in 2010 and how it will be stored, blended and transported.
“(The canola council’s) interest is building a new industry. What we’re saying is, ‘not on our backs,’ ” said Stephen Laskowski, vice-president of the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
“We are the end user and when the trucks are stalled at the side of the road, the canola council or the other people who are supplying the (biodiesel) really aren’t going to care.”
During the Alberta Renewable Diesel Demonstration project, a fleet of 70 vehicles ran on a two percent canola biodiesel blend during the winter of 2007-08 and a five percent canola-tallow mixture during the spring and summer months.
There were no reports of filter problems, fuel gelling, starting troubles or other difficulties despite temperatures dipping as low as -44 C.
Buth said that is the proof Ottawa needs to proceed with its two percent diesel fuel and heating oil mandate.
When the federal government announced its biofuel mandates in December 2006, it attached a stipulation that biodiesel manufacturers would have to first successfully demonstrate their fuel works under a range of Canadian conditions.
The federal mandate is to come into force no later than 2012, but biodiesel supporters say now that a large scale demonstration project has been successfully completed, the mandate can be introduced at the same time as the ethanol mandate in 2010.
“The provinces are already moving that way,” said Buth, noting that Alberta and British Columbia have announced they will be adopting a two percent and five percent biodiesel mandate respectively by 2010.
Laskowski said the Alberta demonstration is a good first step in what should be a multi-step process. There are many more questions to be answered.
For instance, starting in 2010, Class 8 truck engines will feature a new emission control technology that uses urea, a first for such vehicles. A new project is required to see how biodiesel will interact with the urea in those new engines.
“Whether the biodiesel lobby likes it or not, it’s a legitimate question,” he said.
Laskowski also noted that federal legislation calls for two percent average renewable content in diesel, which means the actual use will be zero in some regions and much higher in others. That’s why the trucking industry wants to test a five percent blend during the winter months rather than the two percent blend used in the Alberta demonstration.
There are other outstanding issues surrounding the supply, distribution and storage of the alternative fuel that are also of concern to the Canadian Petroleum Products Institute.
“It’s not a simple task what we’re about to do here,” said Laskowski.
“The canola council or the others who are pushing for 2010 are obviously disregarding the questions we’re raising,” he said.
Biodiesel officials say the oil companies know how to blend, store and transport biodiesel.
“There are hundreds of high-speed blending terminals in the U.S. and Europe that blend millions of litres of biodiesel every day,” said Ian Thomson, president of Canadian Bioenergy Corp., Western Canada’s leading supplier of biodiesel.
Laskowski points to the recent breakdown of Minnesota school buses due to clogged fuel filters as an example that the kinks have yet to be ironed out with biodiesel blends.
However, a consulting firm hired by the biofuel industry determined the clogging was due to paraffin from the diesel portion of the fuel rather than the biodiesel portion.
