BILL BRADLEY
Sudbury could become a leader in the field of biodiesel fuel if a new pilot project in the city is successful.
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Councillor Louise Portelance fills a city vehicle with biodiesel fuel, while Govindh Jayeraman, president of Topic Energy, watches. |
Yesterday at the Sudbury transit garage on Frobisher Street, deputy mayor Louise Portelance and two city officials, chief plants engineer Paul Graham and economic development officer Paul Finley, outlined the benefits of biodiesel fuel, a form of green energy.
Two Sudbury transit buses and four public works vehicles will be fuelled by biodiesel for the next year.
Green energy is one of the five engines of economic growth identified and adopted by city council in its 2015 Economic Development Plan.
?The biodiesel pilot project will not only research important environmental benefits like smog reduction, but it will also enable us to explore new business opportunities,? Portelance said.
So what exactly is biodiesel fuel?
Biodiesel is a fuel made from the extracted oils of crushed vegetables like soybeans or canola, which can be used in diesel engines.
Because local farmers grow crops of each vegetable already, Sudbury can power its own transportation fleets with the locally produced fuel. This can not only put cash in the hands of local farmers, it can help diversify the local economy by processing the oil here.
?Farmers from Temiskaming through Sudbury to Algoma can grow a crop that they can count on having a market for,? says Finley
Biodiesel can also be used by local mining companies to replace electric or diesel-powered vehicles with a more efficient and less polluting way of moving materials underground.
If the pilot project is successful, and Topia Energy of Guelph, the biodiesel developers, decides to build a biodiesel plant here, it would be the first biodiesel facility in Canada.
This could help Sudbury develop into a research and development centre for new green technology.
Finley says it will take time, perhaps six months to a year, to build up the market for a local biodiesel manufacturing plant.
?But this is a cutting edge fuel, used all over the world. This represents a real opportunity with a refinery located here with an agricultural base around Sudbury, not to mention the spinoff industries which could pop up as well.?
The fuel is currently being used by most of Toronto Hydro?s fleet and much of Montreal?s transit fleet is fuelled by biodiesel as well.
The artificially low price of electricity imposed by the Eves? government is slowing wind energy development, but Finley said the Tories new green energy plans, announced in early July, might help.
All three provincial parties vying to win the next election say they support renewable energy.
