The primary users of diesel fuel in this country do not want to be forced to put expensive and potentially harmful biodiesel into their vehicles.
“Why should we pay for it? What is in it for us?” said Stephen Laskowski, vice-president of economic and environmental affairs with the Canadian Trucking Alliance.
He represents a federation of 4,500 trucking companies that handle about 65 percent of the freight moving across Canadian highways. Those companies oppose the establishment of a national biodiesel mandate.
The group has raised objections to the Conservative government’s call for a two percent mandate. Its main concern is the impact on their expensive, high-tech truck engines.
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Laskowski said while everything works in controlled tests, real-world experience tells a different story.
Shortly after Minnesota implemented a two percent biodiesel mandate, or B2 standard, in 2005, truckers became stranded along roadsides all across the state. Soybean-based biodiesel that didn’t meet national specifications found its way into the blending system, clogging fuel filters when temperatures fell below -15 C.
“If you are going to change our fuel you need to ensure that our engines are going to operate. We don’t think that’s too much to ask for,” said Laskowski.
Ian Thomson, president of the Alberta Biodiesel Association, said by the time the federal mandate is implemented, biodiesel is expected to be priced on par with regular diesel, and he refuted Laskowski’s comments about quality problems.
He said the problems that occurred in Minnesota have been corrected and it is naïve to assume that Canada will be wrestling with those same issues in 2010, which is the earliest date that the Conservative’s mandate could kick in.
“That’s old news,” said Thomson.
He said the Canadian Trucking Alliance needs to wake up and look at current data, like its counterparts. The American Trucking Association has endorsed the use of biodiesel blends of up to five percent.
“The CTA just doesn’t want to see renewable fuels because it is one more thing that it feels like it is going to have imposed on it,” said Thomson.
Laskowski said the trucking industry isn’t opposed to environmental regulations that make sense, like the move to ultra low sulfur diesel.
Biodiesel doesn’t make sense because there are cheaper alternatives available to the trucking industry that would create greater greenhouse gas reductions by making minimal changes to existing regulations.
Shifting to one super tire on the back end of tractor-trailer combinations instead of the dual tires would decrease greenhouse gas emissions by up to six percent, double the benefit in even the most optimistic projections for biodiesel at B2-B5 blends.
Other measures include putting scoops on the back end of trailers or installing idling reduction equipment.
“If biodiesel is really about reducing emissions from trucks, here are options that blow biodiesel out of the water,” said Laskowski.
“This really isn’t about emissions. This is about setting up a new industry. So say it.”
But that industry can’t be built on the backs of the trucking sector, said Laskowski, noting that the U.S. National Biodiesel Board found that one-third of the biodiesel sampled in the U.S. between November 2005 and November 2006 did not meet specifications because of incomplete processing.
Thomson reiterated that biodiesel poses no threat to truck engines, especially at the two percent blend rate proposed by the federal government.
The Engine Manufacturers Association recently released a statement that, based on preliminary results, the use of B1 to B5 blends, has no ill effects on even the most modern truck engines.
“The engine manufacturers are ahead of where the CTA is,” said Thomson.
Laskowski said nobody knows what impact the alternative fuel will have on the virtually smog-free engines that will be mandatory in 2010.
He takes comfort in the language of the proposed mandate, which recognizes there are technology issues that have to be worked out before it could be implemented.
Thomson said the mandate won’t be held up by technology issues, as evidenced by the statement from the Engine Manufacturers Association.
