Aside from lowering harmful pollutant emissions, potentially eliminating U.S. need for foreign oil and prolonging the life of a diesel engine, biodiesel can be very inexpensively produced.

The use of biodiesel seems to be gaining traction at the grass-roots level in communities throughout the nation, with positive results for drivers and the environment.

So, what are we doing here in Miami to move toward biodiesel?

In March of this year, the city of Coral Gables signed an agreement with a company called SolarDiesel to partner in a pilot program that will test a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent petroleum diesel in the city’s trucks.

“We’re a little behind because we had to import the palm oil, but we will be starting in the next month,” says Clive Cork, automotive director for the city of Coral Gables.

The plan for this pilot program is to use three vehicles to test the biodiesel blended fuel for 60 days, during which time fueling records will be kept. If the fuel proves effective, the city plans to add vehicles to the pilot program for up to six months. After the pilot program, the city will consider using this alternative fuel for the entire municipal fleet.

The University of Miami, located in Coral Gables, is also planning to take part in the program.

“We hope, by this fall, to be using a blend of 80 percent petroleum and 20 percent soy-based biodiesel in our shuttles,” says Chuck McConnell, parking director for the university.

There are 16 shuttles in the university’s fleet, nine of which, owned by a company called Optima, have been authorized by the manufacturer for the use of biodiesel. The remaining seven, owned by a company called Glavel, have not yet been authorized.

“I see two things happening once we start using biodiesel,” McConnell adds, “the obvious reduction in emissions, and, hopefully, the expanse of its use on campus.”

So far, there are no plans to increase the percentage of biodiesel in the fuel, 20 percent being the cap many automobile companies set for vehicle warranties to remain valid. Nevertheless, it seems a good, albeit small, step toward reaching goals set by the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, which Coral Gables Mayor Don Slesnick signed in January 2007.

That agreement, signed by hundreds of mayors throughout the United States, is a pact to lower emissions harmful to the environment.

The mayors’ agreement began as a response to the nonparticipation of the U.S. federal government in the Kyoto Protocol, an agreement that went into effect in February 2005 between 141 countries to lower harmful emissions that contribute to global warming.

City of Miami Mayor Manny Diaz also signed the agreement, and in 2006 announced plans to convert 1,000 city vehicles to hybrid or other fuel-efficient engines by 2012.

“So far I believe there’s only two city of Miami-hybrids,” says District 2 Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. Robert Ruano, the director of grants administration for Miami, says the city is currently looking into the use of biodiesel fuel in its fleet.

To date, there have been no announcements of plans to test biodiesel on city of Miami vehicles.

The city of Miami Beach has not signed the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, and as of yet has made no announcements to use or test biodiesel in city vehicles.

If you already have a diesel car and want to make the switch to biodiesel, you’re in luck because diesel engines require no modification to use biodiesel fuel. However, the only way to get ready-to-run biodiesel to pump right into your car in Miami is by building your own tank, which can cost up to $3,000 and, during use, will create leftover glycerin that needs to be disposed of carefully.

The SunPost was able to find only one company in Miami running a licensed biodiesel pump: Sol Atlantic Biodiesel, run by Chris Miranda and Lisa Bowman, both in their 20s.

Miranda got the idea to sell biodiesel when he left the University of Florida, where he was more than halfway through getting a pre-dental degree, to travel to Oregon, where biodiesel fuel is available to the consumer at many filling stations.

“In Oregon it’s pretty much everywhere,” says Miranda. “They have blends from B20 (20 percent biodiesel to 80 percent petroleum diesel) to B99 (99 percent biodiesel, 1 percent petroleum diesel). You can pull up to a lot of gas stations and fill your car up with basically pure biodiesel.”

Miranda teamed up with Bowman, a business student he met at UF, to start the company.

Sol Atlantic, which operates out of a small warehouse in Hialeah Gardens, can only sell its B99 palm oil (at roughly $2.70 a gallon) in 50-gallon quantities. To allow people to drive up and fill the tank of their diesel Jetta, for example, Sol Atlantic would need a filling station license.

“It was hard enough getting the licenses we have now,” says Miranda. “Most of the people we had to speak with to get the licenses didn’t even know what biodiesel is.”

Miranda and Bowman are aiming to partner with a local filling station to help distribute biodiesel to the public, but are currently operating in debt, with very few customers due to lack of an advertising budget.

Another problem that Miami-based biodiesel upstart companies like Sol Atlantic face is the rising cost of imported biodiesel. The most popular form of biodiesel, domestically produced soybean oil, is rapidly rising in demand and price.

“We get palm oil biodiesel from Ecuador because it’s cheaper than soybean oil biodiesel,” says Miranda. “We really want to provide people with biodiesel, but I don’t think they’d be willing to pay $3.40 a gallon for it, which is what we’d have to charge for imported soybean-based biodiesel.”

According to Dr. George Philippidis, a biodiesel expert working at Florida International University’s Applied Research Center, the rising price of popular biodiesel sources is leading local biofuel entrepreneurs to look for alternatives.

“We [at the Applied Research Center] get a lot of calls about alternative fuels, especially from local entrepreneurs trying to set up their own biodiesel production businesses.… I think that with the rising cost of vegetable oils, like soybean oil, people should look to alternatives such as secondhand fuel sources, like used vegetable oil from restaurants,” says Philippidis.

Another possible strategy Philippidis sees for production of biodiesel in South Florida is the use of locally grown raw material, such as coconut oil or jatropha.

The jatropha plant may prove especially promising for a Miami biofuel crop because not only does it prefer a tropical climate, it is also inedible, which will ostensibly keep the price lower than a crop in high demand as both food source and fuel source.

For a successful grass-roots movement to make biodiesel available to South Florida drivers, some sort of organizational system needs to be established in order to provide guidelines and support for the local industry, researchers and consumers.

“Lots of things have potential; biofuels have promise,” says Sean O’Hanlon, a Miami best business practices consultant-turned-biofuel-advocate who has recently formed a nonprofit organization called The American Biofuels Council.

The Miami-based council is currently in its infancy, but its purpose, according to O’Hanlon’s recently drafted mission statement, “is to promote the research, development, education, and use of sustainable biofuels and to advise on how these goals are best accomplished.”

O’Hanlon has already contacted Sol Atlantic to assist them in research, development and distribution of their biodiesel.

The bridge O’Hanlon is attempting to build between biofuel experts and biofuel upstarts may produce the spark necessary to create a large biofuel industry in South Florida.

“We really don’t have a choice,” says O’Hanlon. “Switching to biodiesel is something we have to do.”

To purchase biodiesel from Sol Atlantic, call 305-698-3679 or visit sol-atlantic-biodiesel.com.

Comments? E-mail ryan@miamisunpost.com