"Diester" = biodiesel
http://auto.com/targetnews/articles/Automotive/07_11_2001.reulb-story-
bcenergyfrancerapeseed.html
FEATURE-
Rapeseed oil used in French cars
PARIS, July 12 (Reuters) - Rapeseed oil, used widely in cooking
oil and margarine because of its low saturated fat content, has made
it out of the kitchen and into cars.
The oil of the yellow-flowered rapeseed plant does not on its
own have the properties required to be used in motor engines. But
when mixed with a chemical substance called methanol, it becomes a
fuel with properties similar to diesel.
Referred to as diester -- a contraction of "diesel" and the
rapeseed by-product "ester" -- the fuel has slowly but surely
penetrated the French market, with most regular gas stations now
offering diesel containing up to five percent diester.
"One (diesel) car out of two uses diester," said Bernard Nicol,
general director of Diester Industries (DI), which markets diester on
behalf of French oilseeds growers.
DIESTER INSIDE
Few people in France realise that they use diester on a regular basis.
"It is 'Diester inside'. The French use diester without knowing
it," Nicol said, coining a phrase from a computer chip maker's advert.
"The fact that diesel contains diester is told to everyone (in
the sector) except consumers," he added. Most oil companies that use
diester omit to mention it in French petrol stations, despite its
green, politically correct image.
Car makers and petroleum companies prize the rapeseed fuel for
its high level of oxygen and absence of sulphur, which give it a
lubricating capacity seen as its main advantage.
Diester also helps reduce engines' carbon dioxide (CO2)
emissions, thus cutting harmful greenhouse effects, Nicol said.
"Diester is the best answer to reduce CO2 emissions," said
Beatrice Perrier, an engineer at the French car maker PSA Peugeot
Citroen, which produces engines that can use up to 30 percent diester
without having to be overhauled.
Apparently seduced by biofuels' impact on "greenhouse gases,"
the European Commission said last month that it planned to present
proposals later this year requiring that all oil refineries mix a
percentage of biofuel with petrol.
Another green aspect of diester was spotlighted last year when
the French oil giant TotalFinaElf used it as a biodegradable solvent
to clean rocks polluted after a ship spilled oil along France's
Atlantic coast.
The company, seeking to repair its image, said diester was best
suited to the task because it was biodegradable, non-toxic and posed
no threat to wildlife.
NEW HORIZONS FOR OILSEEDS GROWERS
Diester, not to be confused with another biofuel called ethanol
that is used as an additive to petrol, has also raised the hopes of
long-suffering French oilseed farmers.
"The chance to transform vegetable oil into a biofuel that could
replace diesel appeared to the oilseed sector as an opportunity not
to be missed," said Pierre Cuypers, president of the French
association for the development of biofuels.
The sector has been under a cloud since the EU cut oilseed
subsidies as part of a 1992 farm reform, sparking an overall decline
in French oilseed area.
But the reform also had a hidden benefit for diester.
Because it required farmers to set aside some of their land as
fallow and because this land could be used to grow crops not destined
for the food chain, the area of rapeseed earmarked for use in
industry has steadily been rising.
"(Although) the area devoted to food rapeseed is decreasing, the
possibility to exploit set-aside fields to non-food ends opened up
new horizons for the oilseeds sector," DI said.
BARRIERS TO GROWTH
If diester has the same benefits as diesel, is
environment-friendly and helps French farmers, why is it not being
used more?
The answer, according to Nicol, boils down to taxes, supply and
complex production procedures.
Each year, the French government approves an amount of diester
to be exempt from a tax on fuel or additives for motor engines.
Because diester costs usually between 1.5 and 2 francs per litre
more to produce than diesel, it needs this tax advantage to be
competitive, explained Nicol, who said 320,000 tonnes of diester were
exempted this year.
"We hope to produce 390,000 tonnes (of diester) in 2002. After
that, it will all depend from the government and the National
Assembly's willingness to develop biofuels," he said.
France, which makes its diester almost solely from rapeseed, is
now the biggest producer in the world.
FILL FRANCE WITH RAPESEED FIELDS
Even if Nicol wanted to market pure diester in gas stations and
thereby compete with the oil companies that are currently his allies
-- something he does not want to do -- there would not be enough
rapeseed in France.
To produce 100 percent diester "we would have to fill the French
countryside with rapeseed fields," he said.
"Diester is a huge potential market but it is limited by
France's ability to increase industrial rapeseed area," said Georges
Vermeersch, director of innovations at Sofiproteol, parent company of
Diester Industries.
In Germany 100 percent diester is widely used in diesel engines.
Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited
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