Running Biodiesel in Cold-Weather Canada

6 January 2006

The Topia GreenStop pumps B20, E10 and E85 in Ottawa, Ontario.

Following Minnesota’s decision last month to implement an emergency 21-day waiver of its new B2 biodiesel mandate in response to reports of biodiesel-related equipment malfunctions (earlier post), Green Car Congress took a peek northward to Canada for an example of how biodiesel has fared in that country’s cold climes.

Minnesota’s biodiesel woes were widely blamed on that fuel’s performance in cold weather, and testing continues in an effort to find the root cause of those problems.

Canada’s first retail biodiesel pump went on line last March in Toronto, Ontario, pumping a B20 blend (20% biodiesel, 80% petroleum diesel). Topia, Canada’s largest distributor of biodiesel, supplies the fuel.

We have four B20 retail pumps, the oldest of which has been running for almost two years, and we’ve never had these sorts of problems.

—Govindh Jayaraman, President of Topia Energy Production Limited

Over this period of time, area temperatures have been as low as -30ºC (-22ºF).

According to Topia, their biodiesel fuel has low levels of contamination because of the waterwashing filtering system, which proves effective at removing contaminants from the biodiesel during the refining process. Topia has reported no incidents where glycerin or other contaminant levels have affected the quality of their product.

Topia also opened its first Topia GreenStop in Ottawa in September 2005. Topia GreenStops are, in the words of the company, “environmental destinations”—retail fuel stations that offer E10 and E85 ethanol blends as well as B20 biodiesel.

Although conventional gasoline and diesel fuels are not sold, GreenStop fuels can be used in cars on the road today: B20 in diesels, E10 in any gasoline-fueled vehicle, and E85 in flex-fuel vehicles. The facility also sells food made fresh daily from organic base products in its Real Café. Jayraraman remarked that with the Real Café concept, Topia “aims to end decades of stale coffee and bad doughnuts at gas stations.” Topia plans to license its Greenstops across North America.

In British Columbia, the resort community of Whistler has been aggressively implementing a community-wide sustainability plan since 2002. The plan is based on The Natural Step, a science-based sustainability framework developed in Sweden. As part of the Whistler plan, the municipality’s diesel-fueled vehicles now run on biodiesel fuel.

We ran B20 in four pieces of equipment last winter with only one filter clogging problem, and that was attributed to a dirty fuel system to start with. Once the filter was changed, no more problems. This year we are running B5 in everything—including fire trucks and school buses—and have not had any problems.

—John Gysbers, Manager of Central Services for the Resort Municipality of Whistler

Over this period, temperatures in Whistler have been as low as -20º C (-4ºF).