According to Jean Arbour, procurement and contract manager of the Division of Purchases, Department of Administrative and Financial Services, the price differential between petroleum fuel and biodiesel has come down, allowing the state of Maine to increase its biodiesel purchase within budgetary constraints.
This winter’s purchase of nearly 360,000 gallons of 10 percent biodiesel blend is an increase over last year’s purchase of 27,000 gallons of B20.
Beth Nagusky, director of the Office of Energy Independence and Security, said that her office is currently working with private entities to encourage construction of a waste vegetable oil processing facility in Maine to convert used restaurant oil into biodiesel.
“We are hoping that the increase in the state’s purchase and the growing demand for this clean, renewable fuel in Maine will help to make such a project economical,” said Nagusky. According to state estimates, Maine restaurants produce over one million gallons of waste vegetable oil per year.
Montreal to Cruise with Biodiesel
A $563,000 project in Montreal, QB, Canada, will demonstrate that biodiesel is a viable alternative fuel for cruise ships.
The BioMer project will test the use of pure biodiesel (B100) as a fuel supply for a fleet of various types and sizes of cruise ships operating in two very tourist-intensive areas: the Old Port of Montreal and the Lachine Canal National Historic Site. In addition to measuring emissions, the project will highlight the impact of biodiesel on marine engine performance and river ecology.
During the demonstration, which began in late June 2004 and will end in October 2004, Canadian renderer Rothsay will supply 254,000 liters (67,000 gallons) of biodiesel to fuel the BioMer fleet: 11 boats running on B100 and one on a blend of five percent biodiesel and 95 percent petroleum diesel. Estimates are that carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 593 metric tons over the duration of the project.
The government of Canada allocated $323,000 to the project through a partnership that includes Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions, Environment Canada, and Natural Resources Canada.
At the provincial level, both the Quebec Environment and Transport departments have supported the project with $25,000.
Two of the project’s key initiators are the Sine Nomine Group and Maritime Innovation’s Technology Transfer Center. According to Camil Lagace, BioMer project director and president of the Sine Nomine Group, the project was well received from the beginning.
“All partners enthusiastically agreed to participate,” Lagace said. “Their commitment to the environment and their determination to take tangible steps to reduce emissions and preserve water quality along the seaway are proof that biodiesel is of interest to the cruise industry.”
Cold Flow Study Near Completion
A National Biodiesel Board (NBB) cold flow study should be completed by mid-October, with the results anticipated for release in early November.
According to Paul Nazzaro, president, Advanced Fuel Solutions, the study aims to satisfy concerns that many petroleum organizations have with how biodiesel would blend with diesel during winter months. The objective is to address the most cost effective options for handling and blending 100 percent biodiesel into diesel fuel at terminals. To accomplish this, a custom blending system was constructed by ASI Engineering of Broken Arrow, OK, that will evaluate biodiesel produced from various feedstocks (soy, yellow grease, and tallow) in conjunction with several noted generic diesel fuels found within the Minnesota marketplace.
“Our project objective will enable us to determine at what temperatures biodiesel and No. 1 and No. 2 diesel blend at different blend rates that will be within acceptable standards for the petroleum industry,” stated Nazzaro. “After documenting and reviewing each proposed blend scenario at different temperatures, we will ascertain those values and then proceed to make recommendations to the [NBB] steering committee for which many are the handlers themselves of these fuels.”
Approximately 14 organizations have joined the committee in collaboration on the project, including petroleum, biodiesel production, and additive companies, government laboratories, renderers, and other industry groups such as the Fats and Proteins Research Foundation.
Nevada University Receives Grant
The University of Nevada at Reno (UNR) was awarded a $69,000 grant by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to investigate modifying the biodiesel preproduction process to remove nitrogen compounds before they get into the process stream. While biodiesel reduces exhaust emissions of carbon monoxide, unburned hydrocarbons, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide, studies have shown an increase in nitrogen oxide emissions for biodiesel produced from virgin cooking oil.
UNR will utilize a large-scale mobile continuous process pilot unit using ethanol, instead of methanol, for the production of biodiesel at its campus location. The production process will consist of waste cooking oil pretreatment, reaction, separation, and purification. Several feedstocks (virgin and waste cooking oils) will be analyzed for the presence of nitrogen, and a methodology will be developed to remove nitrogen-based compounds before they enter the process stream. UNR’s diesel needs will be met by using the biodiesel produced with the mobile continuous process pilot unit.
Other partners in the project include the Washoe County District Health Department, Applied Research Initiative, and Nevada State Department of Agriculture.
NBB Creates Small Producer Membership, Launches BEN
Small producers of biodiesel, those manufacturing less than 250,000 gallons per year, can now join the National Biodiesel Board (NBB) at reduced dues. NBB members voted in July to create the new Small Producer Nonvoting Associate Member category in response to recommendations from a small producers working group formed by NBB to address challenges specific to them.
In order to encourage good quality control of biodiesel by small producers, this new member class will be given the additional benefit of crediting two years worth of dues toward BQ-9000 certification fees. BQ-9000 is a quality control program established by the National Biodiesel Accreditation Commission, an autonomous committee of NBB.
In a partnership between NBB and the Petroleum Marketers Association of America (PMAA), Biodiesel Education Network (BEN) has been introduced to answer petroleum distributors’ questions. BEN is a resource for PMAA members who have technical, marketing, and other biodiesel questions and is available on the organization’s Web site at www.pmaa.org.
Distributors will ask their questions to BEN via the Web site and a biodiesel and petroleum expert will answer in detail within 48 hours.
North Carolina Offers Tax Credits
Beginning January 1, 2005, tax credits will be available in North Carolina for dispensing and processing renewable fuels, which includes biodiesel and ethanol.
House Bill 1636 provides a credit equal to 15 percent of construction and installation costs of a renewable fuel dispensing facility will be available in three equal annual installments against franchise and income tax liability, and 25 percent of the cost to construct and place in service a commercial facility for processing renewable fuel can be credited against franchise and income tax liability in seven equal annual installments. Facilities must be up and running prior to January 1, 2008, to take the credits.
Initially, the bill covered biodiesel “derived from pure virgin soybean oil in a two percent minimum blend.” Prior to being passed, the bill was changed to reference existing state legislation defining biodiesel as “any fuel or mixture of fuels derived in whole or in part from agricultural products or animal fats or wastes from these products or fats.”
Pacific Biodiesel Awarded
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)-Hawaii Section presented their 2004 Outstanding Project/Design award to Pacific Biodiesel, Inc., Maui, HI, for their Sand Island biodiesel plant. This is the ninth year for the ASME-Hawaii competition, which recognizes deserving mechanical engineering-type projects or designs in Hawaii, Guam, and American Samoa that provide the greatest benefits in economics, social, and environmental aspects and shows outstanding use of mechanical engineering principles.
Pacific Biodiesel’s Sand Island plant was built in 2000 and has a capacity of 25,000 gallons per day of grease trap waste and 1,500 gallons per day of biodiesel. The company’s first plant was built in 1996 as the answer to concerns over potential environmental and health problems resulting from restaurant grease clogging the Central Maui Landfill. Robert King, owner of King Diesel on Maui who was contracted to maintain the generators at the landfill, teamed up with Daryl Reece, agricultural engineer, to develop a method to process discarded cooking oil into clean-burning fuel for diesel engines. King and Reece formed Pacific Biodiesel and built the first biodiesel plant in the Pacific Rim.
Puerto Rico Looking to Future
According to the Caribbean Business, two Puerto Rican companies are looking at the possibility of producing biodiesel from used cooking oil.
The engineering firm Panzardi-ERM, Inc., has completed the design of a 15 million gallon biodiesel plant, but may wait until 2006 to begin processing. That is when new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations limiting sulfur emissions from conventional diesel vehicles to below 15 parts per million go into effect. Once the regulation is in place, biodiesel will be more competitive as it emits fewer emissions than other fuels, Panzardi-ERM President Pedro Panzardi told the paper.
The Caribbean Business is also reporting that Edelcar, Inc., a cooking-oil company, has reviewed a business plan and assessed the technology necessary to build a plant that would produce four to six million gallons of biodiesel a year. According to Panzardi, the two companies have collaborated on research and development and if Edelcar builds its own processing plant, Panzardi-ERM would scale back the size of its own.
The two companies have been developing their business plans for the past two years with University of Puerto Rico-Mayaguez Chemical Engineer Jose Colucci, who obtained a federal grant to research the production of biodiesel in Puerto Rico. The paper states that Colucci has been producing modest quantities of biodiesel at a small pilot plant.
Edelcar President Nicolas Carvajal informed the paper that Edelcar, which primarily produces and markets cooking oil, collects used cooking oil and grease from 1,500 island restaurants as a side business. But since Puerto Rico doesn’t produce enough used cooking oil to support a biodiesel processing plant, he added that the companies would have to buy additional feed-stock from mainland providers.
Biodiesel Bulletin - October 2004 Render