Resource saving and environmentally friendly buses in Aalborg

CIVITAS Initiative

Around half of the city buses in Aalborg started to use 10 percent biodiesel which is CO2 neutral on 1 October 2010. The fuel is second generation biodiesel which means that it is made from abattoir waste and fallen livestock. Early calculations show that the redistribution will mean a lower CO2 emission of 140 t each year, which corresponds to the emission from approximately 55 cars or the emission from electricity of 70 homes.

The 50 buses that started using 10 percent. biodiesel are not just environmental friendly due to lower CO2 emission but the choice of second generation biodiesel also means that it is more resource effective than first generation bio-diesel. Whereas first generation biofuels are made from crops such as corn, rapeseed and sugar canes, second generation is made from waste products, in this case abattoir waste and fallen livestock.In the choice of fuel, we have investigated how a potential commissioning would benefit the environment from lower CO2 emission, and which expenses this could have globally in the long term. This is why there was never any doubt about the choice of second generation biofuels, site manager Jens Mogensen explains.The project was launched on 1 October when the project partners, Aalborg Kommune and Nordjyllands Trafikselskab, handed out bread rolls and juice to 1000 passengers early in the morning. Afterwards, the director of Nordjyllands Trafikselskab, Thomas Kastrup-Larsen, and the alderman at Aalborg Kommune, Mariann Nørgaard, gave a short speech, mixed the bio component with regular diesel and symbolically fuelled the first bus. During the morning it was also possible for people passing to see and smell the biodiesel, which to the surprise of many people, did not smell worse than ordinary diesel. Later this autumn the trial will be extended to about 50 vehicles in the local postal service fleet. Through this the City of Aalborg gains valuable knowledge about the use of second generation bio-diesel made from waste products, which might be exploited further beyond the time scale of CIVITAS in Aalborg or other cities in Europe.

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