It appears that Ontario’s Ministry of Agriculture has temporarily put on hold its proposal to mandate biodiesel blends for the province’s transport trucks.

The government was considering a biodiesel mandate of B2 or B5 for provincial heavy trucks.

According to the Ontario Trucking Association, the lobby group appears to have been successful in its campaign to make the Minister of Agriculture think twice about the imminent mandatory adoption of biodiesel.

A written reply from the newly-minted Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Leona Dombrowsky, dated August 29, indicates as much:

“I am aware that the trucking industry has a number of concerns about biodiesel as a fuel,” the minister writes. “I understand that the federal government has introduced new on-road vehicle and engine emission regulations that will impact heavy duty vehicles. Under these regulations, biodiesel will have less smog reduction advantage over petrodiesel…”

The minister goes on to admit that biodiesel does have cold weather challenges, and to note the industry’s concern over biodiesel blends when it comes to engine warranty, distribution and cost.

“The Canadian government continues to conduct its own assessments of biodiesel, including fleet and transit demonstrations,” writes the minister. “You may be aware that an end-user demonstration is being conducted on long-haul commercial transport vehicles. The results of that demonstration are expected next year.”

But OTA says the minister’s letter does strike one troubling note when she mentions that “yellow grease” derived from used fryer is being considered as an alternative to virgin vegetable oil feedstocks including soybean and canola oil. OTA questions the reality of this source being able to meet the diesel demand in Ontario.

That said, OTA emerged from a recent leading edge conference on developments in the diesel engine emissions reductions – the Diesel Engine Emissions Reduction Conference (DEER – the US Department of Energy’s primary mechanism for public exchange of state of the art clean diesel research and development) “even firmer in its resolve that the proponents of biodiesel have many questions to answer before the association would ever consider supporting a mandatory biodiesel blend in the province.”

Particularly interesting was the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (NREL) presentation on the topic of biodiesel. (NREL is the principal research laboratory for the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and renewable Energy, which provides the majority of its funding.)

According to the OTA, NREL identified three barriers to the widespread application of biodiesel in its presentation:

1. Fuel quality standard: OTA says NREL highlighted the work the biodiesel industry still needs to do with regards to developing a fuel standard that will eliminate diesel engine operators’ concerns that all biodiesel blends will be acceptable for use in diesel engines – i.e. Will not void the engine warranty.

2) Increased NOx emissions: NREL reported mixed results on this issue. Tests on new EGR engines showed significant increases in NOx under one test parameter and neutral results under another. This clearly shows the environmental uncertainty and the need for more data on biodiesel’s impact on Class 8 EGR engines is required, says OTA.

3) Lack of understanding of biodiesel’s impact on 2007 and 2010 engines: As these vehicles are still in the development stage no one can say with certainty how they will be impacted.

While OTA has not ruled out the possibility of one day supporting the introduction of a biodiesel blend into Ontario’s commercial truck engines, it insists “biodiesel proponents will have to come up with sound business and environmental arguments before they gain the support of the association.”

The debate over biodiesel continues to rage in North America. Last a controversial study by Cornell University professor Dr. David Pimentel indicated that turning plants into biofuel actually uses more fossil fuel energy than the resulting ethanol or biodiesel generates. The study — which was promoted by the Ontario Trucking Association — went on to state “there is just no energy benefit to using plant biomass for liquid fuel. These [ethanol and biodiesel] strategies are not sustainable.”

However, just days later the same study was blasted by a number of groups — both private and government, including the US Department of Energy.

“As a researcher with more than 10 years of experience in this area, I find the paper unconvincing,” said Jim Duffield, USDA senior agricultural economist and one of the original authors of the DOE/USDA study. “It lacks depth and clarity compared to previous studies published on this topic that clearly show biodiesel has a positive energy balance.”

So while some arms of the DOE may be drawing attention to the pitfalls of mandating biodiesel on industry, others aren’t shy about promoting its benefits to the environment.

www.ontruck.org
www.doe.gov