The following opinion was compiled and submitted by: Judie Dyck, executive director, Saskatchewan Canola Growers Association; Lionel Labelle, president, Saskatchewan Ethanol Development Council; Al Scholz, executive director, Saskatchewan Agrivision Corp.; Ken McBride, president, Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan; and David Marit, president, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
The federal Conservative government is expected to announce a national Renewable Fuel Standard/Strategy before Christmas.
Western Canadian primary producers have a huge stake in the policy development in a Canadian RFS because Western Canada has the largest biomass for a biofuel industry, specifically cereal crops for ethanol and canola for biodiesel.
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Despite this advantage, among others, Western Canada may still lose out on a biodiesel industry if the petroleum industry is successful in obtaining language in the legislation that refers to a “renewable content” rather than a specific biodiesel standard within the RFS.
The specific standard for biodiesel (methyl/ethyl ester) was initially requested because of concerns that the petroleum industry would use only ethanol in a non-specified RFS because the ethanol industry is much further advanced and has less distribution issues than biodiesel.
Recent concerns, however, are over new commercialized technology referred to as “hydro treating” or “hydro cracking,” which may allow the petroleum industry to take any vegetable oil to be added at the refinery and distributed throughout their existing diesel fuel distribution system.
This technology would completely eliminate biodiesel production and the rural economic opportunity gleaned from that emerging industry would be lost.
Furthermore, with this new technology, the use of Canadian feedstocks by the petroleum industry is not in any way assured, with imported palm oil as a potential feedstock. The consequences of this federal decision would be calamitous to Western Canada.
Saskatchewan, with 46 percent of the arable acres in Canada, is the largest producer of feedstocks for the emerging ethanol and biodiesel industry. The importance and advantages of canola as a feedstock for biodiesel are defined and proven:
- Canola is the number one oilseed produced in Canada.
- Canola has superior oil extraction characteristics when compared to soybeans.
- Canola has superior performance qualities when compared to soybeans.
- Biodiesel from canola provides superior lubricity, which is a critical component as the petroleum industry reduces sulfur content in diesel.
- Canola has superior cold flow properties for biodiesel, which is needed in our colder climate.
- Last year Canada produced a record crop of 9.7 million tonnes of canola. The 2006 crop estimates are eight million tonnes.
- Saskatchewan produces on average 45 percent of Canada’s canola.
- Saskatchewan will soon have the largest canola crush capacity in North America.
- The European biodiesel industry imported 1.5 million tonnes either as canola oil directly from Canada or as canola seed to be crushed in other countries such as the United States, Turkey and Dubai, and then shipped to Europe as oil for biodiesel production.
Canada consumes 25 billion litres of diesel fuel annually, on and off road. A two to five percent biodiesel RFS would mean 500 million to 1.25 billion litres of biodiesel or the equivalent of two to five million acres of canola production.
The signatories to this document are asking our federal government to ensure that producers, communities and the rural economy are allowed to play a role in the emerging biofuel industry.
Prime minister Stephen Harper, make sure that biodiesel has a place in Canada’s renewable fuel strategy.
