Cranes powered by cooking oil

A major Australian construction project has cut carbon emissions by 100 tonnes thanks to the use of a fuel blend made up of 20% biodiesel — mainly consisting of cooking oil.

Two huge gantry cranes — each 30 m high — operated for around 10 months as part of a Victorian Government project removing nine level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong, lifting and assembling concrete pieces to build a 3.2 km stretch of elevated rail. In addition, smaller gantry cranes were present at another part of the site.

Clean-burning biofuels, including bioethanol and biodiesel, are fuel sources that can be used as an alternative to petrol or to mineral diesel, allowing carbon emissions to be dramatically reduced. While biofuels can consist of anything from animal fats to soybeans, it is recycled vegetable oil — sourced from a food manufacturing plant in Melbourne’s north — that makes up the highest percentage in the blend used by the gantry cranes.

“The biodiesel mix is carefully calibrated not to freeze or lose energy content,” noted Fin Robertson, a sustainability manager with the Level Crossing Removal Authority.

“From a sustainability point of view, recycled cooking oil is ideal. It starts as a high-quality oil but can’t be used again for cooking, and would otherwise have to be disposed of.”

The fuel mix was supplied by Green Power Solutions, which additionally provided a premium European generator to help power the cranes. According to company spokesperson Richard Williams, “The generator is a 550 kVA Scania model that is a top-of-the-range generator for its size.

“Its engine has a unique feature to save energy when the crane is not actively operating, by shutting down half the engine at the idle stage,” Williams said.

“That’s ideal given the stop-start nature of the work these cranes do — and even when idling these bigger engines can use quite a lot of fuel, but this way we keep things ticking along until it is ready to go again.”

With biofuel still a growing area of development in Australia and around the world, Green Power Solutions is taking a holistic approach to the supply and delivery of the fuel, along with the provision of generators. As Williams explains, it all comes down to maintaining the integrity of the fuel.

“It’s not simple to get a fuel company to deliver biodiesel — supply in Australia is very limited,” he said.

“You need to understand the fuel, understand the fuel properties and make sure the process works as a whole.”