The biodiesel research programme of New Zealand
- Massey Univ., Palmerston North (New Zealand)
Research into using triglyceride fuels in compression ignition engines began in New Zealand in the 1970`s. The objective was to identify, produce and evaluate a fuel from vegetable oils or animal fats which could be used to power the existing engine fleet without modifications. From a variety of fuels screened, methyl rapeseed oil esters and methyl tallow esters appeared most promising due to their fuel characteristics and their potential availability of supply, tallow being a low value by-product from the export industry equivalent to 10% of the national diesel fuel demand. Short term bench tests and long term road tests of engine performance were conducted for a range of vehicles using neat esters and also blended with diesel. The higher cetane value of tallow esters (> 70) was noteworthy. No technical problems were observed even after extended oil change tests or on turbo-charged engines. Engine wear, after over 200-hours of normal road use, was less than in companion vehicles running on diesel along. Economic analysis of a range of process plant sizes, from 4000 l/year on-farm, to 25,000 m{sup 3}/year for a regional plant, showed economies of scale. By-product credits for glycerol and rapeseed meal were included in both commercial and national economic analyses. For tallow esters a single plant of 25,000 m{sup 3}/year was preferred to match the national supply of tallow. This would enable a blend of 10% esters/90% diesel to be produced to the current national fuel standard specifications. The programme was concluded in 1989 after having shown triglyceride fuels were technically feasible but not economically competitive. High production costs for rapeseed resulted in esters being double the wholesale diesel price. For tallow esters to be competitive crude oil would need to rise to US$27/barrel. The New Zealand government is currently evaluating means of reducing the national CO{sub 2} levels including that produced by the transport sector.
- Research Organization:
- National Renewable Energy Lab., Golden, CO (United States)
- OSTI ID:
- 115308
- Report Number(s):
- NREL/CP--200-8098; CONF-9508104--; ON: DE95009230
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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