The M/V Anna Desgagnés, being unloaded in Pangnirtung, Nunavut. With thanks to Lise Audet, Groupes Desgagnés for sending this shot along…

In Environment Canada’s EnviroZine Issue 69, there is a lengthy story on the test use of biodiesel on a marine vessel.

On July 2, 2006, the merchant vessel Anna Desgagnés set out to ship its standard cargo of heavy machinery, trucks and freights to ports along the Atlantic coast, all the way into Resolute Bay, one of the northernmost points in Canada.

In addition to its usual cargo, the hulking 17 850 ton ship – part of the Transport Desgagnés fleet – had something else onboard. As part of a pilot project called BioShip, one of the four generators powering the ship was running on a unique blend of rendered animal fats and cooking oils.

Included in the article were some ‘fast facts’ on biodiesel, which I thought were worth sharing:

Biodiesel is 10 times less toxic than table salt and as biodegradable as sugar. This makes biodiesel ideal for use in environmentally sensitive areas.

Biodiesel provides increased lubricity, increasing engine performance and decreasing engine wear.

Restaurants in Canada generate nearly 200 million kilograms of spent cooking fats and oils every year.

Biodiesel is safer to handle and transport than petroleum.

Biodiesel can be used in all diesel vehicles with minimal or no engine modifications and provides as much power as normal diesel fuel.

Rothsay Biodiesel, a division of Maple Leaf Foods Ltd., provided 115 000 litres of their animal-based biofuel – biodiesel – for the BioShip project.

Rothsay commissioned its Montreal facility in November 2005, becoming Canada’s first commercial-scale biodiesel plant. Located on Montreal’s South Shore, in Ville Ste. Catherine, the facility can currently process 35 million litres of biodiesel per year.

According to Natural Resources Canada data, that 35 million litres of biodiesel is equal to taking 16 000 light trucks or 22 000 cars off the road (the equivalent of 122 000 tonnes of greenhouse gases). Based on a life cycle assessment, each tonne of biodiesel produced from recycled oils and fats reduces greenhouse gas emissions by three tonnes. It can also reduce other tailpipe emissions, including smog-causing particulate matter and harmful carcinogens.

If not used to produce biodiesel, agro-industry waste – slaughterhouse waste, recycled cooking oil, non-food-grade virgin oil and agricultural surplus – would otherwise be discarded into the environment where it would release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

Links:

Rothsay Biodiesel

Groupe Desgagnés website, and their 4 page pdf on the BioShip Project

As an interesting sidenote, while promoting the One-Tonne Challenge, a government of Canada Climate Change awareness campaign, I had my car loaded on the Relais Nordik, a ship operated in the St Lawrence by Groupe Desgagnés. I was travelling from southern Labrador (Blanc-Sablon) to Natashquan, where Hwy 138 comes to an end, a thousand miles east of Montreal.