The alt-fuel club

• By
• Christopher Pollon

Image by Peter Holst

A close-knit Vancouver community tests the limits of alternative-fuel cars

When Damian Kettlewell bought his diesel Mercedes on eBay, his vision was to create a grease-car running on 100-per-cent discarded French fry grease. Within weeks of the July 2004 online purchase, Kettlewell had completed the $1,800 conversion (including labour), and with this bold act of innovation, fired Esso, Chevron, Shell and Husky Oil.

“I hate going to gas stations,” says Kettlewell, a 35-year-old entrepreneur and environmental activist. “I’ve seen the political and environmental footprint of the oil and gas business, and it’s not something I want to support.”

Since 2004, he has invested in a Burnaby pub with a full kitchen and deep fryer, which for him is a move akin to buying his own gas station. Kettlewell can regularly be seen backing into the Great Bear Pub, which supplies 100 per cent of his fuel needs.

“I run the waste oil through a coffee filter to catch sediment, let it sit for two weeks to settle, and pour it in my tank,” he explains.

Kettlewell is an ambassador of sorts, one of a very small group of Vancouver pioneers – an “early adopter” in marketing-speak – who is not waiting for industry to take the lead on cutting greenhouse gas emissions associated with transportation. A member of the Green Party of B.C., Kettlewell took on Premier Gordon Campbell in the 2005 election in Vancouver’s Point Grey riding, collecting a respectable 4,000 votes for the Green Party, compared to 12,500 votes for Campbell. Leading by example, he is part of a close-knit community of self-professed alternative-fuel geeks, pushing the boundaries of what government and industry consider feasible.

As an organizer of and participant in clean-air automotive shows in Greater Vancouver, Kettlewell offers to take me for a grease-fuelled ride around town, introducing me to his network.

With a press of his accelerator, the peppy station wagon takes off southward down Commercial Drive, not in a cloud of fine particulate matter, but with a whiff of poutine topped with industrial strength gravy. Minutes after we climb aboard the grease car, a man in a convertible Miata passes on the left, flashing an approving thumbs up.

“That happens a lot,” Kettlewell says with a laugh, explaining that he gets extra attention from the bumper sticker above his licence plate that reads, “Waste Veggie Oil Car – GHG Neutral.”

The grease car is not completely benign; it still emits greenhouse gases into the air, but the cumulative “cradle to grave” emissions, from the planting and harvest of the vegetable seed, to its burning in his tank, is much lower.

Our destination this sunny September morning is Recycling Alternative, a small private recycling business in the industrial district east of Main and Terminal. It is here that Louise Schwarz and Robert Weatherbe run a fleet of eight recycling trucks on 100 percent biodiesel, as well as a co-operative biodiesel “gas station” serving about 100 members.

“Biodiesel” is not to be confused with the pure vegetable oil that Kettlewell uses straight out of the fryer. Biodiesel is a renewable fuel derived from vegetable oils (e.g., soybean) or animal fats, and manufactured using a chemical process to remove glycerine from the oil. While Kettlewell’s grease car required a custom-made 74-litre tank, a new heater, filter and custom fuel lines, biodiesel can be burned by any mass-produced car or truck designed to run on petroleum diesel. The driver of any diesel car can go to any gas station and use plain petroleum diesel if they want or need to, yet at next fill-up can use a blend of petro and biodiesel, depending on what is available. Biodiesel can be mixed with petroleum-derived diesel in any proportion, typically ranging from five-per-cent biodiesel (called B5) to 100-per-cent biodiesel (called B100).

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average biodiesel emissions are impressive compared to petro diesel: a vehicle running B100 produces 67 per cent fewer unburned hydrocarbons, 48 per cent less carbon monoxide, 47 per cent less particulate matter, and 100 per cent fewer sulphates. (For vehicles burning B20, the numbers are 20 per cent, 12 per cent, 12 per cent and 20 per cent respectively).

But despite these obvious benefits, the use of biodiesel as automotive fuel is still in early infancy across Greater Vancouver and Canada, compared to the U.S. and especially Europe. Today there are only four retail “stations” in Greater Vancouver (one in North Vancouver, two in Burnaby and one in Delta), and the biodiesel co-operative I am about to see is the only place in Vancouver that sells pure 100 per cent biodiesel to the public.