Demonstration Project Conquers the Cold Weather

The federal government has announced plans to implement a renewable fuels standard requiring a five-per-cent renewable content in gasoline by 2010 and two-per-cent renewable content in diesel by 2012. Meeting this standard is dependent upon the successful demonstration of renewable diesel use under a range of Canadian conditions.

“To meet this need and demonstrate the cold-weather operability of renewable diesel, we launched the Alberta Renewable Diesel Demonstration (ARDD),” says Adam Gagnon, a program manager at Climate Change Central, which oversaw the project.  “The project, which began in 2006, is a multi-stakeholder effort, involving the federal and provincial governments, petroleum refiners, fuel blenders and distributors, primary diesel users and commercial carriers.”

Consisting of lab testing and on-road demonstration, the ARDD study covered much of Alberta.  Although temperatures in the study area dipped as low as -44°C during the demonstration, there were no reports of any fuel-related operating difficulties or reduced performance among the participating vehicles.  All fleets were able to use the test fuels without any filter clogging, hard starts, non-starts or breakdowns. 

All fuels used in the demonstration consistently met ASTM International and Canadian General Standard Board (CGSB) quality specifications.  The demonstration’s commercial blending facility at Shell Canada’s Sherwood Marketing Terminal in Edmonton was designed to allow rack loading of B2 and B5 blends of two types of renewable diesel fuel: fatty acid methyl ester and hydrogenation derived renewable diesel. 

A fleet of more than 70 vehicles was recruited to test the fuels.  The fleet spanned Class 8 transport trucks with and without new exhaust after-treatment technologies, school buses, various delivery trucks and heavy-duty oilfield services vehicles.  The vehicles travelled through the Cold Lake-Bonnyville area, along the Edmonton-Calgary corridor and as far afield as Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie, running on B2 blends during the cold-weather months of December 2007 to April 2008 and B5 blends from April to September 2008. 

“The ARDD has provided hands-on experience in cold weather for fuel blenders, distributors, long-haul trucking fleets and drivers,” says Gagnon.  “It has helped build knowledge about blending infrastructure and fuel delivery and provides us with a better understanding of how renewable diesel will fit into the current Canadian fuel supply.”

More information on the Alberta Renewable Diesel Demonstration is available at www.renewablediesel.ca.