HAMMOND — A new fuel derived from vegetable oil has powered one of Hammond’s blue garbage trucks for the past six weeks.
It burned cleaner, quieter and more efficiently than the diesel fuel the city’s trucks usually run on, according to the men who drove it.
“I can’t wait for all of them to run like that,” Sanitation Department worker Tim Shropshire said.
City officials and a Chicago company felt happy enough with their trial run of Esterhol — the brand name for the vegetable fuel made by Naturally Renewable Group LLC — that they called a news conference on the Wolf Lake shore Thursday to brag about it.
Esterhol’s cost — about 30 percent less now than diesel — was the main reason the city agreed in January to participate in the test, Mayor Tom McDermott Jr. and consultant Tom Dabertin said.
“Give me a way to cut costs and I’ll look seriously at it,” McDermott said. “Everything’s worth a shot.”
Because of the initial trial’s success, he added, the test will be expanded to six more diesel-powered trucks.
Hammond’s city departments spend about $1 million a year on fuel, city officials said.
No engine modifications were needed for the new fuel.
Brad Snower, a principal in Naturally Renewable Group, said the company approached Hammond for the test and is thinking now of building a plant in Hammond capable of producing 60 million gallons a year. NRG’s plant now is on Chicago’s south side.
Bruce Rosen, NRG’s director of fuel development who formerly worked at BP, said that while ethanol and Esterhol come from vegetable oils, they are chemically different.
He said Esterhol doesn’t undergo the chemical transformation that ethanol or biodiesel, a fuel blend derived in part from vegetable oil, do, and its production doesn’t use as much energy as ethanol does.
Unlike an ethanol-gasoline blend that typically has less mileage than straight gasoline, Esterhol was at least as efficient as diesel, according to the two Hammond workers who drove the trial truck.
And it didn’t put out the sooty fumes diesel fuel does.
Snower said Naturally Renewable Group began working a year ago to bring its fuel, developed with a proprietary formula, to the market.
It wasn’t economical until diesel prices rose well past $2 a gallon, he said.
U.S. Rep. Pete Visclosky congratulated the city and company for their efforts.
“I think this is a true success story,” he said.