Sunday, September 17, 2006
Vegetable oil fuel for cleaner air
From the RoundTable blog
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Dan L. Frei
Frei is a Roanoke-based political consultant.
In a region that often suffers from high particulate air pollution, our local governments could take the lead on an initiative that would help clear the air.
Switching diesel vehicle fleets from petroleum diesel to vegetable oil fuel (bio-diesel) is already happening in various parts of the nation.
In some localities, petroleum bus fumes are becoming a thing of the past. As a city bus or garbage truck passes by, one might detect a mild whiff of French fries instead of smelly fumes. Why? Because those diesel engines are burning vegetable oil fuel instead of petroleum diesel.
In 1898, when Rudolph Diesel first demonstrated his compression ignition (Diesel) engine at the World's Exhibition in Paris, he used peanut oil as fuel. Vegetable oil fuel for diesel engines is not new, and it's not rocket science.
One simple thing the Roanoke Valley and the region can do cheaply and soon to help clear our air is switch our local governments' diesel-powered vehicle fleets to bio-diesel, a fuel that can be made from locally grown vegetable oil crops, combined with the waste fryer oils from our local restaurants.
Not to be confused with ethanol, vegetable oil-based bio-diesel fuel is operationally equivalent to petroleum diesel and reduces up to 90 percent of small particle emission and potentially 100 percent of greenhouse gas emissions from diesel engines. The city of Keene, N.H., has used bio-diesel in its fleet without issue for a while now. The city of Portsmouth, N.H., has recently announced that it will move to switch its petroleum diesel fleet to bio-diesel fuel after a test period.
Local governments in the region could help establish an ongoing local demand for bio-diesel by banding together to make a commitment to switch their petroleum diesel fleets to vegetable oil fuel. With government entities in the region cooperatively paving the way with an initial commitment to demand, profit-based private sector supply will emerge to meet that demand. It's a horse before the cart thing: If demand is demonstrated to exist, supply will follow. Generating the supply to meet that demand is a job-creating economic development opportunity.
The problem in our region is the absence of a commercially reliable supply of vegetable oil fuel. For our diesel fleets such as school buses and garbage trucks to fill up at a bio-diesel pump, private industry first would have to produce and distribute the product. The fuel could be made from the collected frying oil waste from restaurants in the region (some of which, I'm told, is already being collected for the production of cosmetics), plus local crops and other organic materials, then refined, with minimal straining and processing, into bio-diesel fuel.
The region's economic development entities could help commercial processing facilities get under way. The old American Viscose site in Roanoke, for example, could be considered for one such location. Virginia Tech's Environmental Planning and Policy Studio (School of Public and International Affairs) has been partnering with the Clean Cities Coalition, Blue Ridge Clean Fuels and James Madison University's Fuels Diversification Program to facilitate fleet conversion for interested agencies in Southwestern Virginia.
This is about working together. Imagine the Department of Transportation growing sunflowers down the sides of the interstate both for their beauty and for an annual harvest of sunflower seed for vegetable oil fuel production. Local farmers could grow additional crops of flax, soy, rapeseed and others to sell to the vegetable oil fuel producer. Household cooking oils could be collected in our ongoing street pickup recycling process to add to the collected food service waste fryer oils.
If all this means burning less petroleum, an efficient use of renewable resources, creating jobs and having cleaner air in our region, what's not to like?
Smart energy is the economic wave of the near future. Making the commitment now to switch our local taxpayer-supported diesel fleets to bio-diesel, subject to a supply being reliably available, is a start. The result, when implemented, will be beneficial to our long-term economic and environmental health. The commitment to that switch, which would signal the supply side of the equation, won't cost a penny. It is appropriate governmental leadership.
To help clear the air of some of the particulates and pollution that often plague us, a switch to vegetable-based bio-diesel fuel is a simple first step that can be taken by our local governments. If we don't wake up and smell our particulates, the tourists may not come back.
