City looks at increasing use of biodiesel

Sault Ste. Marie City councillors will be asked to consider joining an alternative energy co-op that's beginning to come together in the Sault and Algoma region.

The lead agencies involved in birthing the Algoma Biofuel Cooperative are Science Enterprise Algoma, Innovation Initiatives Ontario North and Stick It To The Man (SITTM) Technologies Inc.

Last year, they commissioned an independent study on the viability of a local small- to medium-sized biofuel plant.

The study favoured the concept of a local facility producing about a million litres of biodiesel from vegetable and waste oils, to be sold as an alternative to petroleum-based diesel.

Ideally, all of this activity would take place locally.

It was out of this idea that the Algoma Biofuel Cooperative was formed, SITTM Executive Vice President Norm Jaehrling tells SooToday.com.

The co-op would see local crops such as sunflowers and canola combined with waste vegetable and animal oils from area food vendors to create biodiesel to be consumed locally.

Last month, City councillors agreed to provide the Sault Ste. Marie Innovation Centre with $20,000 to establish a local biofuel cooperative, also providing $10,000 for a sustainable biomass production zone project to focus on producing, assessing, facilitating commercial use of private woody and agrivultural biomass sources for cogeneration operations.

Major supporters of the biomass initiative include St. Marys Paper and local start-up firm SITTM (Stick It To the Man) Technologies.

Shown is a photo of a small test plot for sunflowers on a City snow dump site.

If the City joins the Algoma Biofuel Cooperative and sunflowers are found to be viable for the soil in the snow dump, then the entire dump could be planted and harvested for the co-op.

SITTM is currently building the seventh generation of its biorefinery system at its location on Batchewana First Nation.

The system will soon be complete and capable of producing as much as four million litres of biodiesel a year.

The City currently uses SITTM biodiesel in three of its buses and has enquired about the possibility of extending the use of biodiesel its whole fleet of buses, said Jaehrling.

For that reason, City Council is being offered the opportunity to become a larger consumer of local biodiesel through the new co-op.

A memorandum of understanding to form the cooperative was signed in July by the Algoma Agricultural Centre, Batchewana Band Industries, Sault Ste. Marie PUC Services and the Innovation Centre, Innovation Initiatives Ontario North, a local farmer and SITTM.

"What we need to do now is take the basic information that we've come up with and turn it into a business plan," said Jaehrling.

Recently Sault MP Tony Martin's office alerted the co-op about possible federal funding opportunities, he said.

If any of those prospects come through, the Algoma Biofuel Cooperative will begin life under a new project manager hired with that funding.

Jaehrling said SITTM hopes to be running its system and producing biofuel by the spring and Algoma Biofuel Cooperative members hope that the City of Sault Ste. Marie will be among the first consumers to be in line for the fuel.