Haulier converts to green

An Irish haulier is to convert 15 heavy goods vehicles to run on pure plant oil - otherwise known as vegetable oil. Unlike biodiesel, which is a mixture of vegetable oil and diesel, the conversions will allow the vehicles to run on 100 per cent vegetable oil. But the converted vehicles will also retain the ability to run completely on diesel, or any percentage mixture of both.

Green Tiger Express already has one heavy goods vehicle converted and work on the remaining 14 Volvo, Scania and Man trucks is continuing. A further four smaller vehicles in the Green Tiger Express fleet are not being converted as yet.

Conversions are being carried out by ecomotion.ie based in Co Wicklow, which is also involved in a pilot project set up by the German-Irish Chamber of Commerce to bring together plant oil growers, converters and suppliers.

At a cost of about €5,000 per conversion and with the lorries using 800 to 1,000 litres of fuel a week, the pay-back time is about 10 weeks before savings start to accrue. With the fleet using about 900,000 litres of fuel a year, savings after the first year of operation should amount to about €100,000. The facility also offers a certain security of supply against a backdrop of increasing diesel prices and unsteady political situations in some oil-producing countries.

However, Jerry Kiersey of Green Tiger told The Irish Times that his main motivating force was neither cost or security of supply, but "green" issues and the desire to run his business in the best environment possible.

"We do it to be a better company," he said. But while he added that he believed vegetable oil as a fuel was "the most exciting thing in the haulage business since the Dublin Port Tunnel", he said the regulation of the industry by Government was also "one of the most frustrating".

Kiersey complained that "Minister (Noel) Dempsey in his wisdom issued licences for a total of six million litres (exempt from excise duty) to be sold annually - has he any idea of how far that will go?"

He is also frustrated that although some growers were grant-aided to install facilities to make the oil, they were then told "they would get no part of the quota of six million litres.

"Others who had no facilities to make the oil were given quotas to sell excise-exempt fuel. There was no transparency about the project."

The German-Irish Chamber of Commerce project, "Biofuels for Transport", is the first pilot project of its kind undertaken with the aid of the Irish Department of Transport.

The project involves the practical use of pure plant oil among key transport users, such as hauliers and bus operators.

The intention of the project is to demonstrate a viable, replicable green transport model for Ireland.

Over the course of this year the scheme will convert 50 separate vehicles - not including the Green Transport Express scheme - and run seminars bringing together transport operators, engine modifiers, biofuel producers and international experts in the field of biofuels.

Among the 50 projects is conversion of a narrow boat from diesel to biofuel, also being converted by ecomotion.ie whose director Peter O'Neill says has tremendous potential for the protection of waterways, given that unlike diesel, vegetable oil is relatively safe in the event of a fuel spill.