'Popcorn' emissions

A campaign to boost the production of environmentally sound, renewable biodiesel will take off next week. But is biofuel still only a buzzword here? MASSIMO FARRUGIA finds out there is still a lack of awareness about biofuels as people resist the idea of their exhaust pipes "smelling of popcorn".

If you poured cooking oil into your diesel vehicle tank it might run for a while until the pipes get blocked and the engine jams. Yet, strange as it may seem, the biofuels market is picking up worldwide as economic forces favour a diesel made from oilseeds instead of petroleum and as petrol is replaced by ethanol made from corn or sugar.

Besides being renewable alternatives to the finite source of mineral oil, biofuels have been proved to cause less pollution when burnt in motor vehicles than the so-called "normal" fuel usually fed into cars, motorbikes, trucks, trains and boats.

Scientific reports also show the lubricity of biodiesel, for example, could extend the lifetime of engines. As a pure fuel, biodiesel contains no sulphur. Even if it is hardly ever sold in pure form but is mostly available in blend stock, with just two per cent biodiesel in a blend hazardous emissions are already reduced.

Higher use of biofuels in Europe and America

Whereas in France a blend of five per cent biodiesel (known as B5) is used by motorists often without them knowing, American drivers use "gasohol", or E10 - a blend consisting of petrol (90 per cent) and ethanol (10 per cent).

A recent report in The Economist said there is an increasing trend towards the use of biofuels in Europe and America, not because policy-makers have suddenly become "green" but mainly because biofuels are providing opportunities to increase profits as the prices of mineral oil soar. Therefore, it is economics, and not environmental awareness, that explains why America, Brazil, Canada, China, France and Germany, to mention a few, are sowing entire plantations of corn, sugar cane and rape seeds to supply the ethanol and ester producing industry. They do not simply rely on used frying oil to make biofuels. Though output is small when compared to petrol and diesel produced from mineral oil worldwide, America's production of ethanol from maize is said to be increasing by 30 per cent a year.

By the end of the year, in fact, America should be producing about 4.4 billion gallons of ethanol a year, a one billion gallon increase in a single year.

Biodiesel producing plants are being built in Europe too. Europe's biggest biodiesel producer, the French company Diester Industrie, produces some 250,000 tonnes a year. It plans to raise production by about 300,000 tonnes by building plants in other parts of the country.

Malta is bound to comply with the targets set by Brussels to conform to the Kyoto protocol ratified by the European Union. Indicative targets issued by the Commission in 2003 state that two per cent of motor fuel consumption should have been biofuel by 2005 and almost six per cent by 2010.

In Malta, EROC's production is still tiny when compared to the booming biofuel markets abroad.

EORC managing director Nicholas Parnis England said the company will produce about 100,000 litres of biodiesel in 2005. Production may increase in the future if the WasteServ project to retrieve frying oil from homes is a success.

Besides reducing exhaust emissions, collecting used frying oil should prevent oil and lard from entering the sewer system. It is calculated that cooking oil and fats cause 35 per cent of the 960 sewage stoppages reported every year.

"Production has increased yearly since 1999 when we started the first experiments to produce the fuel from used cooking oil and tallow," Mr Parnis England said.

Edible Oil first tested the biofuel on its own vehicles for a whole year.

What, edible oil-powered cars?

A chat with a few motorists and mechanics who specialise in diesel engines is enough to show the public is still generally wary of using biodiesel to fuel vehicles. While the odd 100,000 litres produced locally every year from used cooking oil by Edible Oil Company Limited is still not enough to cater for the whole of Malta, the majority still prefer the mineral oil fuel, mostly because they fear engine breakdowns.

"People should be educated before biodiesel, or blends of it, are launched onto the market," a mechanic said, explaining that not all cars, especially older ones, would be able to take biodiesel.

"At one point, a high-grade, finer kind of diesel was being imported and many motorists complained that their diesel pumps had started leaking," he said.

"This goes to show how people have to tread carefully. For some it might be fine to use but for others it may create problems," he said.

Another mechanic was more straightforward. "I wouldn't use it in my car," he said.

Still, the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, ST Microelectronics and a number of private companies and NGOs run their fleets on biodiesel, as is the abattoir incinerator. They have reported no major engine problems, according to Edible Oil's managing director Nicholas Parnis England.

"We have been selling B20 (20 per cent) biodiesel commercially for three years and have had no major complaints from clients. We sell a blend that is quite common in other countries," he said.

Though sold in America, Canada and Germany, unmixed, 100 per cent biodiesel may damage engine gaskets if the engine is not designed to take it, especially in the case of cars manufactured before 1994.

A motorist said that though biodiesel was 1c5 cheaper than normal diesel in Malta, it was "not worth the risk". The production costs of biodiesel are generally higher than normal diesel, even if the difference fluctuates depending on the world market price of oil and vegetable oils.

In the case of Malta, Mr Parnis England said the government was promoting biofuels by adopting a detaxation policy. In other words, excise duty is not charged on the biodiesel portion of the blend, which explains why B20 sold by EORC is slightly cheaper. Biofuels are subsidised by governments in various countries, especially in the EU where pressure to cut gas emissions is mounting.

"When vehicles using our biodiesel were tested for emissions, the amount of hazardous emissions registered was way below the maximum compliance standard acceptable in VRT testing," Mr Parnis England explained.

How is biodiesel made?

Though the term "biodiesel" has only recently become part of popular jargon, alkyl esters - the components of biodiesel - have been produced through a basic chemical process of making fuel from biomass feedstock since the mid-19th century. Originally, however, the intention was often not that of making biofuels but to extract glycerine from oil, which was then used to make soap. Biodiesel was, so to speak, the by-product of this process.

The basic process used to make biodiesel today is by making fat or oil react to alcohol, using a catalyst (such as sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide) to produce glycerine and esters, or biodiesel. Though other methods can be employed to produce the biofuel, this process, technically called base catalysed transesterification, is widely used because it is the most economical - the esters are produced at a low temperature and low pressure, with a high conversion.

The glycerine produces is sold separately and used in the chemical industry. The amount of alkyl esters produced depends on the quality of the fatty source, which is why impurities are removed before the process starts when the initial source is used frying oil.

The fuel is labelled by the letter B followed by a number which represents the percentage of the biodiesel present in the blend.

The evolution of combustion engines

A quick look at the history of combustion engines shows that the first designs were conceived to run on biomass fuels to substitute the steam engine. When Rudolph Diesel first demonstrated his compression engine at the World's Exhibition in Paris in 1898, he used peanut oil as a fuel.

Vegetable oils were used in diesel engines till the 1920s, when the diesel engine was modified to use a petroleum residue.

Henry Ford, who designed his 1908 Model T to run on ethanol, shared Mr Diesel's conviction that biomass fuels would be used for transport. Mr Ford himself built an ethanol plant and managed to strike a deal with Standard Oil to sell it from their fuel stations.

However, the future of renewable resources was doomed by the fierce competition of cheap petroleum derivatives. Petroleum giants soon took control of the fuel supply market in the United States and Europe and derailed the renewable biofuel industries.

During the first three decades of the 20th century, American oil barons managed to kill another very important biofuel - hemp, a long-time, highly important crop used in the paper and textile producing industry since colonial times. It was later found that hemp could be used to produce high-grade biodiesel.

Applying the name "marijuana" to hemp (the word is the Mexican name for the hemp plant), the oil industry resorted to a fear campaign which led to the Marijuana Tax Act that killed the biofuel's commercial potential.

Interestingly, both the Allies and the Germans used biofuels to power their machines during World War II. Notwithstanding this, the huge economic and political interests in the petroleum industry overshadowed the use of biofuels.