Dublin buses to run on plant oil blend

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Dublin buses to run on plant oil blend

24 February 2006 09:10

Dublin Bus is to commence running some of its vehicles on a blend of diesel and oil derived from plants from next May.

Five of its City Tour buses will begin running on the mixture of 95% diesel and 5% plant oil with the view that, if the test works, the trial will be extended.

The move has been triggered by a projected 50% increase in the price of diesel this year and growing concern over greenhouse gas emissions.
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Dublin Bus has a fleet of 1,100 vehicles, consuming around 30m litres of diesel each year.

The cost to the company is significantly eased by generous Government excise relief for the public transport sector.

But Dublin Bus has been undertaking a review of alternative fuels due to a projected significant hike in oil prices and the need to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions which cause global warming.

It has examined hybrid electrical technology, as used on the Toyota Prius car, and running its fleet of buses on pure vegetable oil from rapeseed or sunflowers.

Next May five of its City Tour buses will begin running on a blend which would not require any engine modification. If this 'bio-diesel' test works, the trial will be extended.

Courtesy of RTE News. A step in the right direction, I think, but they need to start jogging in that direction soon - as does Ireland - we can't continue down this oil-guzzling road...

lostexpectation

5% er is that a blend?

jd

NoelRock wrote:

Courtesy of RTE News. A step in the right direction, I think, but they need to start jogging in that direction soon - as does Ireland - we can't continue down this oil-guzzling road...

I'm not sure biofuels are the answer. Sure they can help, but tghe acreage required is large.

SeanW

It's a good move but IMO they need to be looking at biodiesel. SVO contains a lot of glycerin which will clog up an engine. The process of removing glycerin and other impurities from the oil is called transesterification. it adds a little to the cost of the fuel but the end product can often be used pure in existing diesel engines.

Some things need to be worked out before using 100% biodiesel (or anything over 20%), biodiesel has a solvent effect which means that really old vehicles need to have any natural rubber fuel lines replaced with synthetic rubber ones, and fuel tanks need to be cleaned or filters changed frequently because petro-diesel is filthy stuff and would have left deposits in such tanks.

I have to say, hats off to Dublin Bus, they seem keen to grab the bull by the horns but I can see problems down the road if they're planning to use unrefined veg. oil. in unmodified diesel engines in any mixture especially in cold weather.

Of course, most of our European neighbors already have major biofuel policies in place, Britan, France, Germany etc, even "Wars-For-Oil" Bush and his NeoCon Congress have been tripping over themselves to support BD usage in the U.S. Meanwhile our last budget contained biofuel initiative I can only describe as under-fertilised.

MarkoP11

lostexpectation wrote:

5% er is that a blend?

Its not clear but biodiesel would be the better choice

There appears to be a warranty issue on the engines not allowing Dublin Bus to try a richer blend that said there are plently of buses over 10 years old floating around to try it out in and I doubt the warranty last that long but the engines may not be suitable

There have been rumours that Irish Rail may try biodiesel as well but again that falls foul of the age of some of the equipment which might not be suitable plus a lot of modern gear which is still under warranty

One thing to note is CIE as it has a public service licence is exempt from duty on fuel so it stands to gain less than those who do

The Hummer

They will run on anything...Except on time!

SeanW

Any engine warranty will be voided by any use of biofuel, with some exceptions none of which likely apply to Irish Rail. that doesn't stop the fuels enthusiasts though So the trick is to find some stuff that's out-of-warranty anyway, but not so old as to increase the possibility of natural rubber fuel lines in older engines and dino-diesel deposit buildup.

So if I were an IE manager planning to convert the fleet to biodiesel (and I believe that can be done with the exception of the Mk1 generator vans) I'd start with the 2600 fleet as they're probably out of warranty but are fairly recent. The 2700s (Alstom?) that's French so the warranty probably covers B5 (5% biodiesel) becuase they use that all the time in France and call it "Diester" or something. Still would want to give the 26Ks a few days in Inchicore first though just to check for the above pitfalls.

I am worried though that Dublin Bus will try to unprocessed oil in existing unmodified engines that's not a good idea, could cause problems, will definately void any warranties, and if it goes seriosuly wrong could give the cause of bio-fuels in Ireland a major black-eye. The saving grace though is that they're doing it on tourbuses so that when it goes pearshaped, at least commuters won't be the ones stuck with the consequences.

Red Alert

The tour buses are all the RH (1990 to 1993) and RA (1994 to 1996) classes so they'd have a few years on them. Strange though to pick them because they have Cummins engines unlike most of the rest of the fleet which are fitted with Volvo engines.

tonyharris999

I read something on this in the Indo on Saturday and I understood that Dublin Bus were to use biodiesel supplied by Greyhound Waste & Recycling.
A 5% blend is not going to do any harm to any engine and it's good to see a start and also some dialogue on biodiesel.

I am running on 100% biodiesel for 4000 kms now and not a bother.

I do agree with the sentiments expressed in this thread - we do need to do something about the oil - it's not going to last forever.

As regards biodiesel, there are a lot of negative views expressed and I think mostly unsupported. The main reason motor manufacturers will not stand over a warranty for biodiesel is because they don't know who makes it or how they make it. Most if not all the biodiesel in this country at the moment is of the home brew variety so you are dependant on the home brewer for your quality control.

Let's hope the provisions in the 2006 finance bill will encourage production and availability of biodiesel at a price level that will encourage motorists to give it a try.