The Great Lakes Zephyr - Wind Energy & Hydrogen Journal

Biodiesel pilot program hits bump in ferry service road

By Anna K. Brinkman
All three boats on the “triangle ferry route,” Southworth to Vashon to Fauntleroy, have been using “B20” blend biodiesel for several months now, but the signs didn’t go up to advertise the pilot project until about two weeks ago — just in time for the biodiesel to start clogging the filters.
The Washington State Ferries (WSF) was forced to stop using the biodiesel, for the time being, while they figure out the problem, because they can’t disrupt service.

Last July the WSF started phasing in a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent low-sulfur petroleum diesel fuel to one boat in the triangle route, while the other two began using the fuel in September. The current clogs are a setback, but are not expected to permanently derail the project.
Organizers seem pleased that Vashon is part of the biodiesel project.

“As soon as we get this (clogging) problem resolved, we’re going to put out a press release. City Light is very interested in educating people about biodiesel, and it’s helpful because a lot of people on Vashon are interested in biodiesel anyway. So this is something we can do with the Vashon community maybe,” said Celia Schorr, WSF spokesperson.

The biodiesel pilot project is a joint endeavor between WSF and Seattle City Light (SCL), a municipal electric utility company that is part of the City of Seattle government structure, according to Corinne Grande, a power analyst who has been working on the biodiesel project for several years.

SCL’s goal is to become “greenhouse-gas neutral” by the end of 2005, and they’re funding this project through their Greenhouse Gas Mitigation Program. “I think we have a very good chance of making it,” says Grande of the 2005 “greenhouse-gas-neutral” goal.

As part of their agreement with WSF, SCL pays for the fuel, and the “green credits” that result from the use of B20 go to SCL instead of WSF.

The study goal is to discover whether B20 is compatible with ferry diesel engines over the long term.
Limiting pollutants is SCL’s main goal, according to Grande, but a nice side-benefit is that by virtue of buying biodiesel, SCL is helping to expand the market for that and other alternative energy sources.
“The specific biodiesel we’re using here today is soy-based biodiesel that’s manufactured in the Midwest by West Central Soy, and the distributor is the Pacific Northwest Energy Company in Tacoma,” said Tina Stotz, environmental manager at WSF. “When it started to get cold, we started seeing some of the clogging problems,” she said.

“The clogging problem is something a lot of people deal with when they begin using biodiesel, because it acts like a different kind of solvent and cleans out the engine,” said Stotz. “ But it doesn’t typically happen after you’ve been using it for a while.”

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