Biodiesel Fat to Fuel Environmental Partnerships Past, Present, Future

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Biodiesel - Fat to Fuel Environmental
Partnerships Past, Present, Future
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• Olof Hansen
• Waste Management Division
• April 2007

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Contents

• Part 1
• Why waste-derived biodiesel?
• Part 2
• Past Successes and Learning Lessons
• Part 3
• Ongoing Projects and Future Goals

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Part 1

• Why waste-derived biodiesel?

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Why Biodiesel?

• Biodiesel is one of our nation's most promising
  alternative fuel sources. And by developing
  biodiesel, you're making this country less
  dependent on foreign sources of oil.
• President George W. Bush
• 
  Remarks at Virginia Biodiesel Refinery May,
  2005

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Benefits of Waste Derived Biodiesel

• Reduces waste
• Protects our environment
• (air, water, waste)
• Saves costs
• Protects workers
• Promotes renewable energy
• Creates a sustainable market

Illustrated by Projects Partnerships
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What the Administrator says about Biodiesel

• Advanced Energy Initiative national goal of
  replacing more than 75 of our oil imports by
  2025
• Biodiesel will help end dependency on foreign oil
  
• Foreign oil will go the way of typewriter and
  walkman
• Restaurant grease which would normally be thrown
  away, will be turned into fuel
• Biodiesel is making the black puff of diesel
  smoke a thing of the past.
• Administrator Steve Johnson
• Remarks at National Biodiesel Conference
• San Diego, February 2006

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Why Focus on Waste Cooking Oil?

• Resource Conservation Challenge (RCC)
• Reduce waste, and reuse and recycle more products
• Recover energy lost in waste going to landfills
• U.S. alone Restaurants and hotels generate 3
  billion gallons of waste cooking oil annually
• Traditionally grease goes to rendering industry

3 billion gallons 5,700 miles of tanker trucks
end-to-end
Beijing
San Francisco
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How can Biodiesel Solve Waste and Water Pollution
Problems?

• By converting waste grease to a higher value
  commodity.
• Diverts large waste stream from
• Landfills or illegal dumping
• Publicly-owned treatment works (POTWs)
• Prevents spills and sewer blockages
• 80 of sewer spills in the USA are caused by
• FOG (Fat Oil - Grease)
• In 2001, EPA sued Los Angeles for 800 sewer
  spills,
• due to pipes clogged by FOG

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Why Region 9? To reduce particulates i
n our air!
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Emission Change between Biodiesel and Petrodiesel
?
Source 2002 Draft EPA Report
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Biodiesels Effect on NOx Emissions
Data from EPA420-P-02-001, October 2002
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Why is R9s Waste Management Division Working on
Biodiesel?

• Biodiesel derived from waste grease helps meet
  national and regional goals for our division
• National GPRA goals
• 35 Recycling rate of MSW
• Pollution prevention measures in goal 5
• Meet RCC objective to conserve energy and
  resources
• Regional niche
• No agricultural crop for biodiesel such as
  soybean fields as in the Midwest, but lots of
  urban crop restaurant grease and other waste
  grease!
• Over 10 million gallons of grease in SF Bay area
  alone!

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What are the Economic Benefits?
Cost Breakdown for Biodiesel Production
Waste cooking oil may reduce biodiesel production
costs by 75 when compared to virgin oil
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Can Biodiesel Replace Petro-Diesel?
Fuel Market in the USA
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How do you Make Biodiesel (C15H31CO2CH3) ?

• Transesterification

Oil (Virgin Alcohol Catalyst or
Waste) (Ethanol) (Lye) 87
12 1
Biodiesel Glycerin 90 10

• Biodiesel can be splash-blended with petroleum
  diesel
• B2 vs. B20 vs. B100 (2 to 100 biodiesel)

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Little Known Fact

• Dr. Rudolph Diesel designed
• the diesel engine in 1894 to run on peanut oil
• The use of vegetable oils for
• engine fuels may seem
• insignificant today. But such
• oils may become in the
• course of time as important as
• petroleum and the coal tar
• products of the present time.

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Federal Environmental and Energy Conservation
Requirements/Incentives

• IRS, provides for fuel tax credits and refunds of
  50 cents/gallon of Biodiesel
• http//www.irs.gov/publications/p378/ar01.html
• EPAct (Energy Policy Act of 2005), requires
  alternative fuel vehicles for all public fleets
• RCRA 6002, requires federal agencies that
  generate heat, mechanical, or electrical energy
  to use fuels derived from solid waste
• Executive Order 13101, greens the government
  through waste prevention, recycling, and federal
  acquisition
• E.O. 13134, develops and promotes bio-based
  products and bio-energy
• E. O. 13423, strengthening Federal environmental,
  energy, and transportation management

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Benefits of Biodiesel

• Environmental (Air, Water, Waste)
• Energy Independence (Domestic, Renewable)
• Economic/Cost (Waste to Fuel)
• Quality/Standards
• Energy Policy Compliance
• Safety/Emergency Response

EPA Region 9 Earth Day 2006 Awardee Willie Nelson
BioWillie
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Summary of Environmental Benefits of Biodiesel

• Waste reduction/diversion from landfills
• Resource conservation waste to fuel conversion
• Currently only alternative fuel passed Clean Air
  Act Tier I and II health effects testing
• Reduction of virtually all regulated air
  emissions
• Over 75 reduction of green house gases
• Non-toxic, contains no sulfur the cause of acid
  rain
• Bio-degradable, no oil spill contamination

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Obstacles to Biodiesel Acceptance

• Quality of fuel
• Limited supply
• Due to both demand and supply reasons
• Potential increase of NOx emissions
• Depends on engine type and test settings
• Lack of familiarity

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Part 2

• FY06 Successes

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Created Web-based Biodiesel Guide for Federal
Facilities

• Launched biodiesel guide for federal facilities
  on Federal Network for Sustainability in Sep 2006
• Summer intern wrote guide
• Guide was featured among others on the
  White House OFEE webpage
• Heavily used resource 450 unique hits/month

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Biodiesel Research at University of Nevada in Reno

• Managed IWG Grant with Chemical engineering
  department with 2 goals
• lower NOx emissions in pre-production ways (w/o
  additives)
• decrease costs by continuous production unit vs.
  batch process
• Grantee produced several promising results,
  already
• Biodiesel production takes far less time and
  energy than found in previous studies
• Nitrogen content of biodiesel is over 40 lower
  than previous research has shown

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Community Biodiesel Business Model in Santa
Cruz, California

• Oversaw IWG grant with Ecology Action (NGO)
• Cradle-to-cradle market model
• Unique partners local restaurants, hauling
  companies, diesel manufacturers, fuel
  distributors, City and County
• Plans to divert 100,000 gallons of waste cooking
  oil from landfills to fuel public fleet

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Collaboration with San Francisco

• In 2005, responded to request from SF Department
  of the Environment on waste derived biodiesel
  project
• Assisted SF in development of biodiesel plan by
  working with diverse, unconventional
  stakeholders SF Environment, solid waste
  recycling section, grants office, SFPUC, Biofuels
  Co-op, MUNI, city college, consultant
• IN 2006, convened meetings at EPA and made them
  aware of WCC RFP
• Met during RFP process to assist w/ grant process
• Successful grant application means that SF is the
  largest city in the US to convert its municipal
  fleet to biodiesel
• Part of Mayors goal to convert whole city fleet
  to B20 by the end of 2007 (8 million gallons of
  diesel/year)

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Cooperation of Air and Waste Div. through West
Coast Collaborative (WCC)

• Added a cleaner fuel section to trucking, marine,
  agriculture, rail, and construction work groups
• Grant RFP contained cleaner fuel (biodiesel)
  section
• Results for Biodiesel in RFP
• 27 out of 56 proposals focus on Biodiesel
• Half of money requested (10 Million) was for
  Biodiesel
• Our convening efforts resulted in at least 8 WCC
  proposals
• 2 biodiesel projects were selected and are being
  funded

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WCC Biodiesel Grant Proposals

• City College of San Francisco
• Clean Cities Coalition in Honolulu
• City of Pacifica POTW
• EBMUD on-site biodiesel production
• Greener Oakland fuels initiative
• Port of LA biodiesel infrastructure
• Car-Lite (Construction) in Sebastopol
• Juneau mobile mini-refinery

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Partnership with Casinos on Biodiesel

• Replicate successful Resource Conversation Fund
  grant with the Gila River Indian Community
  project From Frybread to the Fuel Tank with
  other R9 Tribes
• Presented on biodiesel at Greening Tribal
  Casinos workshop in Sacramento
• Work with Pomo Tribe and biodiesel vendor
• Initiate partnership with Quartz Tribe
• Coordinated with ORD Las Vegas lab and biodiesel
  vendors using Casino grease in Las Vegas

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Part 3

• FY07 Goals

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Biodiesel FY07 Goals

• Launch our R9 Biodiesel webpage, up and running
  since January 2007
• http//www.epa.gov/region9/biodiesel
• Target institutions with existing drivers, and
• where supply and demand are co-located
• where large supplies of used cooking oil exist,
  and
• where project can be scaled up or replicated
• such as
• wastewater treatment plants
• universities/colleges
• Tribal or commercial casinos
• food processing industry

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Partnership Opportunities with Waste Water
Treatment Plants in FY07

• Potential Partners
• EBMUD (Non-funded WCC Project)
• Convert FOG to fuel for trucks on-site
• Cal FOG (State professional association, meeting
  in fall)
• Share waste-to-fuel message w/ state-wide group
• Pacifica (Non-funded WCC Project)
• FOG to biodiesel and NOx emission reduction
  technology
• 8 Marin POTWs (FOG assessment study)
• Where from, how much, where to feasibility study

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Current Collaborations with Wastewater Treatment
Plants

• As follow-up to WRPPN conference, approached
  CalFOG (POTW association) to view biodiesel as a
  solution to FOG
• Meeting in October at LA Sanitation District
• Assist EBMUD with project demonstrating the
  benefits and cost effectiveness of biodiesel as a
  clean, renewable alternative fuel from brown
  grease
• Non-funded WCC grant
• Explore partnership w/Eastern Municipal Water
  District (Californias 5th largest water
  district) looking at biodiesel as a source
  reduction project

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Partnership Opportunities with Universities in
FY07

• Potential Partners
• University of California Office of the President
  (UCOP)
• UC system wide sustainable transportation project
• Biodiesel for individual campus fleet managers
• Unfunded WCC UC-Davis project
• San Francisco City College
• WCC project, PR event in March
• Lots of partners, City, grease hauler, petroleum
  industry, consultant
• Los Angeles Community College
• Beneficial Use Summit partner, cross partnership
• Model for other community colleges

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Ongoing collaborations with UC Office of the
President

• Contacted individual campuses of UC system
• Spoke at UC system-wide sustainability conference
• Met w/ some UC fleet managers
• Launched sustainable transportation project
• Will meet w/ UC fleet managers in October
• Will formalize program through UCOP

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Partnership Opportunities with Casinos in FY07

• Potential Partners
• Tribal Casinos
• Hopland Pomo and Sho-Kah-Wah Casino
• UN-R IWG Project and Washoe Tribe
• Quartz Valley Tribe in N. California
• Outreach at R9 Tribal Conference in November
• Commercial Casinos
• Finish EPA ORD LV lab project
• Duplicate Reno casinos project of using used
  cooking oil in furnaces and boilers

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Other Biodiesel Partnership Activities Planned
for FY07

• Explore biodiesel projects for
• Ports
• Intermodal use between vessels to rail and road
• High priority for RA
• Greening DOD
• Expand US Navy B20 policy to other branches and
  other federal facilities
• Hawaii and other Pacific Islands
• Create energy independence and local
  cradle-to-cradle markets
• Superfund and Corrective Action cleanup sites
  (Cleanup and clean air)
• Requirement for contractors to use B20 in
  equipment
• Food Processing Industry
• Large users of frying oil and large fleets at
  same location
• US-Mexico border
• Nogales fire department grant to collect grease
• Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEP)
• Biodiesel as fuel for RCRA violator, modeled
  after Region 1

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Thank you
Olof Hansen hansen.olof_at_epa.gov 1(415) 972-3328