Is it good for your diesel vehicle? There are many aspects to this question.
Firstly, as enthusiastic motorists who love their pick-up trucks, Audi Q7 V6 Tdi or Range Rover TD6, there is nothing yet available to match the torque of turbo-charged, direct injection diesel engines nor their fuel efficiency.
They would like the benefits of palm methyl ester Biodiesel which have better lubricity, higher cetane value and cleaner fuel (no sulphur).
For commercial vehicle owners – buses, lorries and prime movers – there is only one fuel – diesel. Even Tiong Nam Transport with its dual fuel prime movers with Natural Gas for Vehicles (NGV) use diesel as the main fuel. They can’t live without diesel.
Finally, there is Malaysia – the world’s second largest producer of palm oil. The Golden Crop as it is called, oil palms are a source of income for many rural families both as smallholders as well as plantation workers.
So what’s the problem?
The problem is one of misguided enthusiasm and not enough inclusiveness on the part of government authorities. Better late than never because the Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Mah Siew Keong has made it a point to engage all the stakeholders in this B10 Biodiesel campaign.
Palm oil surplus-rich countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Colombia have a national agenda to promote palm oil, including its use as a transport fuel via palm methyl ester (PME). Other vegetable oil rich states, such as Illinois in the United States, give rebates to fleet operators that convert their fleets to use B20 Soy Methyl Ester (SOME) biodiesel.
The problem is that these vegetable oil rich sovereign entities want to drive bio-diesel beyond the internationally accepted B7 bio-diesel without an exhaustive inclusion of fuel injection equipment manufacturers and mineral-oil derived fuel suppliers.
For instance, when the Cabinet declared in 2006 that it wanted to move from B7 to B10 biodiesel for Euro2M by 2020, the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) stepped up its research with field trials using 20 vehicles. These included twin-cab trucks from Ford, Mitsubishi, and Toyota running B10 biodiesel Euro 2.
Five units of Peugeot 508 GT were operated on Euro5 B10 biodiesel starting from 2013.
It also bought a BMW 520d for B10 testing by the plantation industries and commodities ministry in 2014.
Even before that, in 2007, it started Euro2 B20 biodiesel testing on five vehicles — Toyota Fortuner, Hilux, Ssangyong Rexton, Mitsubishi Pajero and a Ford Everest.
You cannot say that the MPOB was not inclusive enough with government agencies. It got 37 heavy commercial vehicles and 10 twin-cab pick up trucks from the Dewan Bandaraya Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) to run trials on B10 biodiesel Euro2.
The troubling thing is that none of these vehicles that were on field trials were ever brought back to the manufacturers to share the test data.
But there is a bright side to the picture. MPOB has plenty of test data from independent sources but it needs one overall, holistic test to cover a broad spectrum of stakeholders to prove that PME B10 biodiesel is good for modern diesels.
For instance, it has test data from one independent source to validate its claims that PME biodiesel is innocent of some of the claims of fuel injection equipment makers.
The Japan Auto – Oil Programme (Jatop), which is a research programme subsidised by the Japanese ministry of economy, trade and industry has given the all-clear on whether PME biodiesel will clog fuel filters. It ran B10 all the way to B100 on engine test beds from 2007 to 2011.
The Jatop programme is organised by the Japan Petroleum Energy Center to develop automotive and fuel technologies to reduce CO2 and land transport and to diversify fuels.
But fuel filter clogging is small potatoes compared with fuel injector clogging.
In this aspect, MPOB has test reports from four sources, only one of which is independent, Jatop again.
Jatop’s test report says that “There is no decline of fuel injection rate after 108 hours of operation with PME10 per cent. No deposition in injector nozzle. However, this Jatop test on fuel injector equipment was conducted on big diesel engines of 7.5 litres, typical of trucks and buses rather than pick up trucks and cars using diesel engines up to 2.5 litre displacement.
The reports from Colombia (B5, B10, B20), and MPOB (B100 and B50 from 1986 to 1989 and 1990-1995) and MPOB (Jan 2013 and ongoing, Peugeot 508 GT, 70,000 km, fuel injector in good condition), would be considered as interested parties.
MPOB and Mah, who drives the BMW 520d as part of MPOB’s B10 biodiesel test regime, are convinced of the beneficial chararactics of B10 biodiesel and should now take the next two steps.
B7 Biodiesel should be introduced to the industrial sector as mandated under the national biofuel policy. The time to introduce it without a price blip is coming. The introduction of B10 biodiesel in industrial diesel will be price neutral when crude oil hits US$60 a barrel and Crude Palm Oil is at RM3,000 a tonne.
The second step is for the MPOB to engage an automotive industry-focused internationally recognised lab to set up a test for B10 and B15 and B20 that will assure the diesel-strong car brands, the fuel suppliers and motorists that B10 biodiesel is good for them. As long as the price effect is neutral.
Malaysian motorists are an enthusiastic lot and the automotive industry has the hearts and minds of the motorists.
However sincere and academically-qualified MPOB researchers are, MPOB and MPIC need to invest in this international certification.
Better late than never.
Yamin Vong is managing editor of motorme.my
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