Bio Products Opportunity

In the wake of releasing a new diesel four-wheel drive, Korean car manufacturer SsangYong has advised that using biodiesel in its vehicles may void parts of its warranty.

According to the car maker, users may be liable for damages caused by substandard fuel such as poor quality biodiesel, sales of which “remain unchecked” at petrol stations. Poor quality fuel has the potential to damage fuel systems including injectors, fuel pumps and rails. SsangYong now warns car owners against the use of biodiesel with a sticker on the fuel flap.

“If it’s proven with our test of the fuel that it’s faulty then whatever repair needs to be done is not warrantable,” says SsangYong Australia managing director Keith Timmins.  ”However, the rest of the vehicle’s warranty remains intact.”

“There hasn’t been a lot of them full stop but there’s been enough to worry about and the problem is broader than just ourselves. I know of a $23,000 repair job on a Range Rover because of dirty bio-diesel.”

The issue highlights an increasing need for stricter enforcement of biofuel standards in Australia, particularly biodiesel which has been largely neglected by petrol companies and legislators until recently. Most biodiesel blends sold in Australia contain a maximum of 20% biodiesel to a majority of mineral diesel fuel, however even at these low concentrations, poorly filtered biodiesel can cause problems. New biodiesel users should also check their filters regularly, since biodiesel can act to loosen solid matter that has been deposited by mineral diesel fuel in the fuel tank, causing it to clog the fuel lines and restrict flow.

(Source: Carsguide.com.au)

For the past twenty years, the World Solar Challenge has demonstrated the ability to run a car purely from the power of the sun. With climate change and resource scarcity registering as a significant public issue, however, the organisers last year added a new class to the competition that promotes environmentally friendly vehicles that don’t necessarily need to run on solar power. Here’s some of the entrants for this year:

• Team Ethanol, from Queensland, is using a production Saab BioPower vehicle to aim for its second consecutive Greenfleet Technology Class title. The team will be running on E85 fuel produced in Sarina, in Queensland’s north.
• The University of Adelaide has entered using its BioBike, a modified motorcycle that runs on pure biodiesel.
• Bios Fuel Corp will be running a diesel-powered vehicle on a controversial 60/40 combination of waste oil and water. The New Zealand-based team says that their ˒W+ fuel is more advanced than ethanol or biodiesel.
• The Japanese ˒Solar vehicle won’t be competing for a title, but the JonaSun team is using the race to demonstrate their technology. The experimental vehicle runs on both solar power and a hydrogen fuel cell.

The race is currently underway, with the first teams expected to make it to Adelaide by the weekend.

Goulburn, located in rural NSW, is likely to be the location for a $5 million biodiesel facility being built by the City Industrial Group. Exact details of the plant are not yet available, but it will use genetically modified crops grown in both Australia and Indonesia.

Paul Menere, the developer for the City Industrial Group project, lists “environmental responsibility” as his main reason for building this and three other biodiesel plants around Australia.

“I’ve been involved in the diesel industry for 30 to 40 years and I know the huge amount of damage fumes can do to humans,” Mr Menere said.

(Source: Goulburn Post via North Queensland Register)

With the Australian Ethanol and Biodiesel conference happening this week in Brisbane, biofuel user groups Biodiesel Association of Australia and Renewable Fuels Australia are joining together to form the Biofuels Association of Australia (BAA Inc).

The move to merge the two prominent biofuel lobbies was prompted by a perceived need to more heavily promote the use of renewable fuels in Australia and push for greater government support in light of the upcoming federal election.

“This is a bold step as it challenges both ethanol and biodiesel to work for the common good of biofuels, as well as those vested interest factors that distinguish ethanol and biodiesel as cleaner burning renewable fuels,” said Bob Gordon, executive director the Australian Renewable Fuels Association. “Australia’s role in [the global biofuel market] has yet to be determined, and every effort has to be made of the opportunity of the federal election to effectively get this message across to both the Coalition Government and the Kevin Rudd Labor Party alternative.”

(Sources: North Queensland Register, Biofuels Australasia)

Researchers at Deakin University in Victoria have shown that emissions from engines burning diesel fuel are far more harmful to airway cells than those from biodiesel. Associate Professor Leigh Ackland, who led the research, said that the escalating need for fuel use may pose a major health hazard.

“The fumes from burning fuels, including diesel, contributes to pollution and can cause heart disease, bronchitis and asthma. Efforts are underway to replace petrol and diesel with cleaner biofuels, such as biodiesel, but there is considerable resistance to this,” Professor Ackland said.

“This study provides clear evidence that diesel exhaust is more harmful to our health than biodiesel exhaust.”

 The study, published in the latest edition of the Immunology and Cell Biology journal, determined that the particulate emissions in diesel, which are higher and more dangerous than petrol or biodiesel, stimulated a “death pathway” response that caused human airway cells to “fuse together and die”. Particulate emissions from biodiesel, by comparison, caused hardly any cell death. Professor Ackland said that this is a clear sign for a need to move towards replacing petroleum-based fuels with biofuels.

“It is clear that breathing in diesel fumes is going to have a far more detrimental effect on our health than biodiesel. Given the level of cell death we have found, diesel exhaust could be the cause of respiratory disorders such as asthma and could even be implicated in cancer,” she said.

(Source: Deakin University via ScienceDaily)

The future of the Australian biofuel industry is looking brighter, with the total production level expected to double to 600 megalitres in 2008, well in excess of the Federal government’s 2010 target of 350 ML.

APAC Biofuels, an industry consultant, released the predictions this week to the Advanced Global Biofuel Summit in Bangkok, also states that production in Australia could exceed 1000 ML by 2010. 

Other key points of the report:

• Producers may have trouble competing “in the lower value energy market with higher value food commodities”
• Drought, consumer acceptance and quality are limiting a higher production of biofuels
• Tallow and waste oil are likely to play a much larger role in Australian biodiesel
• Falling feedstock prices are the main driver for increased production of both ethanol and biodiesel.

(Sources: ABC News, The Australian)

Western Australian biodiesel producer Australian Renewable Fuels Ltd is suffering after a breakdown in negotiations with “a major multinational oil company” to supply biodiesel blends in its service stations around the state, citing “complexities with the logistics of blending biodiesel with bulk mineral diesel at the oil company’s WA terminal”. ARF chief John Lillywhite said that although there is demand for biodiesel in Australia’s largest state, the fuel industry and federal government were not interested in assisting the industry.

“With one exception, you’ve got a hostile major fuel industry with an indifferent federal government,” he said. “So far, the commitment to Australian biodiesel policy and strategy has been extremely poor.”

ARF’s major current contracts include a 10 million litre annual supply to Caltex in WA and South Australia, and 1.5 million litres annually to Wesfarmers Premier Coal, as well as 500,000 litres to an as-yet-unnamed WA buyer.

(Source: WA Business News)

With sales of passenger diesel vehicles increasing rapidly, some are raising concerns about the potential health hazards that diesel emissions can pose. Although Europe and the United States both have quite strict diesel particulate regulations, Australia has not yet caught up in both technology and regulations.

Associate Professor Vishy Karri, from the School of Engineering at University of Tasmania, says that Australia is in danger of falling behind global trends in reducing diesel emissions. “I would love to see Australia put strict regulations in place. In my opinion we are lagging behind and should be acting on these things sooner rather than later,”&nbsphe said in an interview with the Mercury.

Although sulphur content in diesel fuel (the primary cause of particulate and smog emissions) has been greatly reduced from 500 parts per million to only 50 ppm in the past year, with a further reduction to the upcoming European standard of 10 ppm planned for 2009, the primary source of potentially dangerous emissions is not cleaner new passenger vehicles, but an ageing road transport fleet that is responsible for over 70% of diesel fuel consumption in Australia. A recent report by the National Environment Protection Council has stated that the individual states need to assist in improving the emissions of the diesel truck fleet through the use of particulate filters and oxidisation catalysts.

Alternatively, Dr Karri has supported the use of biodiesel to reduce emissions in any diesel vehicle. Biodiesel decreases almost all types of emissions, with the exception of NOx, and is produced from renewable sources in Australia such as canola. According to Dr Karri, “there are some staggering figures that show hydrocarbons and greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced, even with 2 per cent biodiesel mixture into diesel.” Despite a lack of warranty support from manufacturers, most diesel vehicles need no modification to run even pure biodiesel.

(Source: Mercury)

Three fishermen from northern Wales have developed a device that captures 85-95% of carbon dioxide and nitrous oxides in a vehicle’s exhaust and converts it to algae, which can then be used to produce biofuels.

The “Greenbox”, as the inventors have dubbed it, is a small bioreactor that contains algae that feeds on the emissions from the vehicle’s exhaust, as pictured above. The box can be swapped out when refuelling, where the algae can be processed into biodiesel as well as potentially methane and fertilizer. The three men who invented it are now hoping to get government or private sector funding to refine and improve their product.

(Not specifically Australian, I know, but something like this - if it can be shaped into a useful, workable product - is simply too great an idea not to talk about.)

(Source: Engadget, thanks to Karan for the tip)