Dublin Bus plans to run its fleet on animal fats

HelterSkelter

Interesting article from today's Indo:

DUBLIN Bus is considering running its fleet of vehicles on biofuels to save money on spiralling fuel costs.

The firm, which will spend €10m on diesel this year, said fuel costs have jumped by 40pc in 2005.

Dublin Bus will test the viability of installing vehicle technology to burn alternative fuels made from vegetable oil or animal fats over the next three months. "These alternatives are getting renewed attention in the light of rising oil prices," said spokesperson Grainne Mackin.

"Certain alternative fuel and energy technologies which were previously considered uneconomical are being re-evaluated.

"Our review is also taking into account the need to achieve reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce dependence on imported oil."

Areas to be covered by the review will also include:

* The use of fuel efficient hybrid-vehicles with an electric motor with a diesel-fuelled engine.

* The prospects for future developments in the areas of renewable energy from bio-mass and other sources.

CIE's overall annual fuel requirement for 2005 is 84,000 tonnes (99m. litres) and fuel bills reached €34m last year.

D'Peoples Voice

HelterSkelter wrote:

"Certain alternative fuel and energy technologies which were previously considered uneconomical are being re-evaluated.

I'm not exaggerating here when I say that when I was in Moscow, only a few years ago, many of their buses had aerials that touched an electirc cable above, thus allowing them to run on electricity. Bloody crazy looking!

If electric engines are usually more economical than petrol/diesel engines(because the electricty power station is powered by some nearby Rubbish incinerator etc), it might be worth looking at.

It was funny, because the bus could't swerve off its path. For all intentise purposes, they acted as small trams! The difference being of course, there was no need to dig up the road to put down rails for them!

Probably would never work in Ireland, because we need the height in our streets for the St Paddy's day parade, just think of the hassle the luas cables across O'connell Street caused!

MrPudding

How long will it take the gov to jack up vat and excise on bio fuels?

MrP

John R

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

I'm not exaggerating here when I say that when I was in Moscow, only a few years ago, many of their buses had aerials that touched an electirc cable above, thus allowing them to run on electricity. Bloody crazy looking!

If electric engines are usually more economical than petrol/diesel engines(because the electricty power station is powered by some nearby Rubbish incinerator etc), it might be worth looking at.

It was funny, because the bus could't swerve off its path. For all intentise purposes, they acted as small trams! The difference being of course, there was no need to dig up the road to put down rails for them!

Probably would never work in Ireland, because we need the height in our streets for the St Paddy's day parade, just think of the hassle the luas cables across O'connell Street caused!

They are called Trolleybuses. There were popular for a while in this part of the world but like trams were killed off in favour of the bus and car.

Belfast had a large network of them, the last of which ran until the late '60s.

LFCFan

San Francisco has them aswell except they can stray from the path as the arms were bendy. Great idea.

Also, if DB do go ahead with Bio Fuels and it does reduce it's costs, the consumer will not see any reduction in ticket prices. All it will mean is higher profits for DB. I wouldn't mind this if it meant prices didn't rise again for a long time and also services were improved with the extra money.

Genghis

LFCFan wrote:

San Francisco has them aswell except they can stray from the path as the arms were bendy. Great idea.

Also, if DB do go ahead with Bio Fuels and it does reduce it's costs, the consumer will not see any reduction in ticket prices. All it will mean is higher profits for DB. I wouldn't mind this if it meant prices didn't rise again for a long time and also services were improved with the extra money.

Reducing fare costs is not the only potential benefit, though. And DB are not strictly a profit-making business - any improvement would mean a lower government subsidy, or perhaps more money available to improve services.

The big plus is the reduction in pollution and in the use of carbon-fuels.

As an aside - 100m litres of fuel per annum for €34m - Does anyone know where CIE get their fuel so cheap - thats about 25-30% of the current RRP for Diesel. Do they not pay taxes?

LFCFan

I reckon Maccers and Burger King would love this too as there would be a grand smell of fast food in the air making people hungry for a take away

cdebru

LFCFan wrote:

San Francisco has them aswell except they can stray from the path as the arms were bendy. Great idea.

Also, if DB do go ahead with Bio Fuels and it does reduce it's costs, the consumer will not see any reduction in ticket prices. All it will mean is higher profits for DB. I wouldn't mind this if it meant prices didn't rise again for a long time and also services were improved with the extra money.

DB does not make "Profits" it makes an "operating surplus" which is invested back into the company for fleet renewals etc

JackieChan

Makes me think of the recycling that our canteen used to do....the fat/oil was canned at the end of the week and sent to Cadburys. I'm sure a lot of canteens/restaurants do this.
Makes perfects sense even if it doesn't sound appealing.

Zaph0d

Genghis wrote:

As an aside - 100m litres of fuel per annum for €34m - Does anyone know where CIE get their fuel so cheap - thats about 25-30% of the current RRP for Diesel. Do they not pay taxes?

there's no duty on fuel used by buses for public transport

...Article 12(11) of the Imposition of Duties (Excise Duties) Order 1975 ...

law wrote:

“Where a person who carries on a passenger road service within the meaning of Section 2 of the Road Transport Act 1932 (No. 2 of 1932), and who either is the licensee under a passenger licence granted under Section 11 of that Act in respect of the passenger road service or is exempted from the application of Section 7 of that Act shows to the satisfaction of the Revenue Commissioners that hydro/carbon oil on which the duty of excise imposed by this paragraph has been paid has been used by him for combustion in the engine of a mechanically propelled vehicle used in a passenger road service in respect of which the licence was granted, the Revenue Commissioners may, subject to compliance with such conditions as they may think to impose, repay to the licensee duty ….. on hydro/carbon oil so used ….”

.

cal29

Zaph0d wrote:

there's no duty on fuel used by buses for public transport

...Article 12(11) of the Imposition of Duties (Excise Duties) Order 1975 ...

.

The revenue take this literally they calculate how much driving the buses do with out passengers
ie out of service returning to depots or from depots to termini etc and how much fuel is used etc they have to pay taxes on that much fuel

Zaph0d

cal29 wrote:

The revenue take this literally they calculate how much driving the buses do with out passengers
ie out of service returning to depots or from depots to termini etc and how much fuel is used etc they have to pay taxes on that much fuel

fair enough, this is what buses seem to do 90% of the time

jesus_thats_gre

LFCFan wrote:

Also, if DB do go ahead with Bio Fuels and it does reduce it's costs, the consumer will not see any reduction in ticket prices. All it will mean is higher profits for DB. I wouldn't mind this if it meant prices didn't rise again for a long time and also services were improved with the extra money.

Why do you not just shout ****ing RIP OFF or something..

Their fuel costs have increased by 45% in the last year.. If they do not find cheaper alternatives, they will have to increase their prices.. Have their fares increased by 45% in the past years? No!

Hagar

On a related note....

The bus company in Nice, France this week announced that it was reverting back to diesel buses. It changed over to gas powered buses in 1997 but by 2002 40% were totally out of service.

Source - Riveria Radio

Gilgamesh

why don't they just equip 30 % of their buses with steam engines, scrap the other 70% and use them to fuel the 30% and with the money they save, they could replace the entire fleet and also got rid of the Sh!tty things they use now?

just a thought of course

AlienGav

Genghis wrote:

As an aside - 100m litres of fuel per annum for €34m - Does anyone know where CIE get their fuel so cheap - thats about 25-30% of the current RRP for Diesel. Do they not pay taxes?

All CIE diesel is a filthy low grade fuel imported cheaply from Russia!

D'Peoples Voice

HelterSkelter wrote:

Interesting article from today's Indo:

DUBLIN Bus is considering running its fleet of vehicles on biofuels to save money on spiralling fuel costs.

According to Volvo UK environment manager John Pitts, bio-diesel 'is dirtier, smellier, and less fuel-efficient than low sulphur diesel'. And, as part of Volvo's own research into bio-diesel and based on Swedish research, he says it 'makes engines more costly to maintain'.
http://irishcar.com/envir/envirmain.htm

is this true? Can anyone confirm if Volvo know absolutely nothing about buses, or if they are partly owned by an oil company?

If Volvo are correct, then it will make Charlie Mcgreevy's move in one of his later budgets to reduce the tax on low sulphur diesel look like the far-sighted correct solution! When you consider this in addition to the reduction in VRT for the Toyota Prius he gave, and the various tax reliefs given to the Wind-based electricity generation industry, it makes charlie look like a Green. No wonder FF shifted him off to Brussels, it goes against all they believe in

dowlingm

Bus operators in Canada do not usually use pure biodiesel as it gels at cold temperatures so they use 20-50% BD/Diesel mix in warm weather and down to 5% in cold weather.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiesel

cdebru

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

According to Volvo UK environment manager John Pitts, bio-diesel 'is dirtier, smellier, and less fuel-efficient than low sulphur diesel'. And, as part of Volvo's own research into bio-diesel and based on Swedish research, he says it 'makes engines more costly to maintain'.
http://irishcar.com/envir/envirmain.htm

is this true? Can anyone confirm if Volvo know absolutely nothing about buses, or if they are partly owned by an oil company?

MOst of DBs Double decker fleet are volvos

Capt'n Midnight

AlienGav wrote:

All CIE diesel is a filthy low grade fuel imported cheaply from Russia!

I've been told it's not that low grade and that the smoke is caused more by poor maintainance than anything.

in Oz they used N2 gas and a turbine on the driveshaft. When you "brake" the turbine compressed gas from one container to another, and when you accelerated it did the reverse.

The could fit extra security cameras to the buses and anytime a bus is delayed by a motorist in a Bus Lane then they could pass the evidence on to the guards for a percentage of the fine. - should speed up the buses and be self financing.

Hybrid buses might be an idea - so much of the time they move at walking pace due to the traffic that ya might as well

Maskhadov

I think its high time that Ireland introduced all these green ideas. For example that green car that ran on alochol. That should have either 1/2 or no VRT and pumps nation wide.

Those methane converters that Germany have should be introduced in all landfills around the country. The government should build the two interconnectors to England and press ahead with wind turbines off the coast. After all there is 100% energy needs off the coast.

dowlingm

maskhadov

it might surprise you but ethanol fuel is not entirely green - depends very much on how it's produced and the amount of energy required. It produces more nitrogen oxides too IIRC.