CARBERRY, Man. – Nearly 40 private and community investor groups have recently come forward with proposals for canola biodiesel plants in Manitoba. Over a dozen have filed letters of intent and one group has already submitted its formal application, says Henry Nelson, director of agri-energy for the Manitoba government.
At a field day hosted by the Manitoba Crop Diversification Centre at Carberry on July 27, Nelson explained that capacities for the proposed biodiesel plants range from less than four million litres annually to more than 100 million litres.
He said most of these plants will produce about 10 million litres annually and it’s possible that many of the 40 proposed plants could be in full production within the next few years.
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
With the smallest biodiesel plants costing less than $1 million to build and equip, Nelson admits it’s not out of the question for individual farmers to set up their own canola biodiesel plants.
He said a capital cost comparison of a grain ethanol plant versus a canola biodiesel plant explains why local groups have shifted their focus to biodiesel facilities.
“Manitoba originally looked at having a large number of small, 20 million litre ethanol plants scattered around the province, but that didn’t pass economic scrutiny,” Nelson said.
“With ethanol, anything under 80 million litres is not economically viable. So now we’ll have one 130 million litre plant in order to get the necessary scale to make it economically viable.
“At this point, I doubt we’ll see small, localized ethanol plants. Some people are still looking at the idea, and maybe better technology can someday make small ethanol plants viable. We’ll have to wait and see.”
Nelson said the latest high-tech ethanol plants are engineered to use anaerobic digestion from ethanol byproducts to power the plant. These plants claim an energy conversion ratio of 1:2 or 1:4. This means that one unit of grain crop energy input creates two or four units of ethanol energy output.
But Nelson is skeptical.
“With grain, each unit of energy typically creates between 1.2 units and 1.5 units of ethanol energy. And studies show a negative return on ethanol for some types of facilities. In some situations, one unit of grain energy creates only 0.7 units of ethanol energy. But a ratio of 1:1.5 is considered good for ethanol.
“Canola-based biodiesel creates an average 3.2 units of output biodiesel energy for every one unit of canola input energy. That’s a realistic ratio of 1:3.2 that most facilities attain easily.”
Nelson said even the newest, most efficient ethanol plants require a nearby market for the meal byproduct. The ethanol plant must be part of an integrated, intensive livestock operation so there is always an end-user for the meal. The buyers of the meal must have a system that is economically and environmentally sound.
“That’s one of the things that makes biodiesel from canola so attractive compared to other oils,” he said. “We get 40 percent oil and only 60 percent meal. That compares very favourably to soybean biodiesel where they get only 20 percent oil and 80 percent meal. And in Europe, their industrial rapeseed varieties get 48 percent oil with 52 percent meal. That’s something we can aim for here.”
With grain ethanol, approximately one-third of the feedstock produces ethanol, one-third becomes distillers grain suitable as a protein supplement for livestock and another third becomes carbon dioxide, which is released to the atmosphere. Although there is a limited market for CO2 in the oil industry and the beverage industry, the equipment to capture and handle it is expensive.
The acreage required per litre of fuel produced is about the same for canola biodiesel and grain ethanol. One bushel of canola generally produces 10 litres of oil, so a typical 30 bu. canola crop will produce about 300 litres of biodiesel per acre.
Likewise, one bu. of grain produces about 10 litres of ethanol, so a typical 30 bu. wheat crop will produce about 300 litres of ethanol per acre.
But Nelson said that’s only part of the story.
“Another thing we can look at is the percent of the total cost of production paid out to farmers to buy the crop feedstock. In canola biodiesel, 75 to 80 percent of the total cost of production is feedstock. When that much is paid out to buy the crop, it tells us the capital cost is lower in a canola biodiesel plant.”
Manitoba is home to 13 of the largest long-distance trucking companies in Canada and is a main point on Canada’s cross-country trucking routes. Manitoba pumps 300 million litres of diesel per year into these trucks.
The Manitoba agricultural sector uses another 300 million litres of diesel annually. Stationary engines, railroads and heating burn the remaining 250 million litres.
“Manitoba farmers could put a significantly high percentage of canola biodiesel into mainstream Manitoba without much trouble at all,” Nelson said.
If the demand was there, he added, farmers could produce nearly the entire 850 million litres as biodiesel.
In 2005, Manitoba grew 2.5 million acres of canola. The long-term average yield is 30 bu., which pencils out to a potential 750 million litres of canola biodiesel. Blending that with another 100 million litres of restaurant waste oil and other available feedstocks, it appears Manitoba could theoretically be self-sufficient in biodiesel.
Another factor causing Canadian diesel burners to look at canola biodiesel is cold weather performance. Canola biodiesel has better flowability than any diesel fuel now available.
“According to all the research, canola biodiesel is the absolute best fuel possible for winter flowability, bar none.”
Nelson said that if you ignore winter conditions, animal fat biodiesel is a better fuel because the higher cetane rating makes it burn cleaner with better exhaust emission ratings. It also has better lubricity, but it’s not a good winter fuel.
The energy conversion ratio on animal fat biodiesel ranges as high as seven units of output, for a high ratio of 1:7. The drawback is there isn’t enough animal fat available to rely on it as a main source of fuel.
Because of the higher cetane, animal fat biodiesel burns 92 percent cleaner than conventional petroleum diesel fuel. Canola biodiesel burns 64 percent cleaner than petroleum diesel.
Nelson said ethanol is ethyl alcohol made from grain, sugar beets, sugar cane or any other sugar-producing crop. The end product is chemically the same for all ethanol, regardless of the feedstock.
Biodiesel, on the other hand, can refer to a range of fuels with different chemical properties, depending on the feedstock. It can come from algae, waste restaurant oils, any oilseed crop or animal fats. In Vietnam, biodiesel is produced from catfish.
A new 130 million litre biodiesel plant in Minnesota was fraught with quality control issues in the past year. As a result, biodiesel has experienced a major setback in that part of the United States.
“Hurricane Katrina caused a shortage of No. 1 diesel fuel, and as a result some biodiesel from the Minnesota plant got dumped into the system without proper testing. It was a bad scene,” Nelson said.
“It points out that quality control and testing is critical to the success of the industry. Every biodiesel sample must meet stringent criteria set by the ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials.) Testing and quality are essential if we expect the biodiesel industry to become a reality.”
Sampling and testing to meet those ASTM standards is one of the hurdles in creating high quality biodiesel in Western Canada. Until recently, most Manitoba samples have been sent to the United States or Alberta for analysis. The cost is between $500 and $1,500 US per sample.
Nelson said an announcement of a new test facility in Manitoba is expected by early fall. The lab will provide quicker turnaround on biodiesel samples from Canadian prairie plants and is expected to set lower fees.
Part of the funding comes from a $2 million allocation by the federal government’s Capital Support Program, while the provincial government will deliver the program. Nelson expects the lab to be operating within a year.
The Capital Support Program also makes funding available to individual canola biodiesel plants, up to a maximum of $250,000 each. Application deadline for this funding is Sept. 30.
Nelson thinks farmers will soon have access to new industrial rapeseed varieties based on older rapeseed genetic lines.
“Rapeseed and canola breeding are relatively quick processes compared to other crops. Dr. Baulder Steffanson maintained some of those older, high oil content genetic lines, so they are still available for breeding purposes today,” he said.
“I don’t know if it’s really a bushel per acre increase we need. What we need for canola biodiesel is an increase in the oil harvested per acre. It won’t be a very long wait.”
