The transit agency is in the final stages of negotiating a purchase agreement with an Ogden refinery to provide bio-diesel fuel for UTA's bus and para-transit fleets.
The switch to the diesel-soy mixture, which could take effect by early next year, could save the agency between 12 to 15 cents per gallon - a significant chunk of money as UTA wrestles with the effects of the recent spike in its fuel costs.
"It's something we're very interested in," UTA spokesman Justin Jones said Wednesday. "We're approaching it cautiously, but optimistically."
At a savings of even 10 cents a gallon, he notes, UTA could save $750,000 annually in fuel costs.
At the high end of the estimate, it might even be enough to take something like a recently proposed fuel surcharge off the table. Last month, UTA postponed a decision on the 25-cent fare hike until June, following protests by low income and disabled residents and questions about how it would be implemented.
UTA experimented with bio-diesel two years ago, filling up 50 para-transit vehicles with the fuel, which breaks down to 80 percent diesel and 20 percent soy - used cooking oil in this case. Aside from problems starting the engines in cold temperatures, which can be alleviated with the use of block heaters, the test-run was a success.
The biggest advantage of bio-diesel is that it requires no engine or other infrastructure changes to the buses and vans, aside from changing the fuel and oil filters. And that cuts both ways, according to Ken Montague, UTA's general manager for support services.
"Like diesel, soy is a commodity, so there can be some price volatility," he said. But if soy were to become unavailable or priced so high that it was no longer economically viable, the transit agency could simply return to running straight diesel fuel.
The pending move to bio-diesel signals the first significant step in UTA's overall shift to alternative fuels. The agency has used natural gas to power a limited number of buses, but is now phasing those out.
UTA General Manager John Inglish told UTA's board of trustees Wednesday that the future of transit fuel alternatives is pointing toward hybrid-electric and hydrogen fuel cells. The latter is probably another two decades away; the former could be in widespread use in the next five years.
The bio-diesel option has been around for some time. But UTA was never able to consider it until now, spokesman Jones says, because of a lack of availability in this market.
That has now changed, with the Ogden-based Kellerstrass Oil willing to produce the fuel. Making it financially viable for them, Montague noted, is the recently-passed federal energy bill, which provides credits for alternative fuel production.
Jones says the oil firm has told UTA that the initial supply of bio-diesel will take about 60 days to blend, meaning the new fuel could be delivered as early as mid-January.
jbaird@sltrib.com
