BQ-9000 Biodiesel Accreditation
We are on the cusp of a biodiesel revolution: Encouraging consumer confidence in growing biodiesel markets is one of the major goals of the BQ-9000 accreditation body.
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Biodiesel fuel production is an industry currently experiencing an accelerating rate of growth as business confidence in alternative energy markets improves, and public sentiment is shifting towards more environmentally-friendly, sustainable living. Biodiesel production in North America is predicted to reach one billion gallons during the year 2007, while less than one tenth of this amount was produced just four years earlier.
Compared to the 300 billion gallons of crude-oil that will be consumed during the same period, Biodiesel production is a fledgling industry that is still undergoing rapid research and development to improve tooling, farming practices, and handling techniques. One of the barriers to Biodiesel growth has been the normal risk associated with blending fuel from a very wide range of feedstock sources, which is often done by companies who have only a few years experience working in this new industry.
Yields, purity, and handling procedures will differ between different suppliers, which raises legitimate concerns with interested parties about quality assurance.
The industry’s response to this demand has been the establishment of common standards for biodiesel production, and more importantly, the BQ 9000 accreditation program which certifies that producers and marketers meet the requirements of the ASTM D 6751 standard for biodiesel production.
Biodiesel is being produced from dozens of different feedstock crops in North America alone, including soy beans, rapeseed (canola), and maize (corn) bi-products, and the fractions produced following the transesterification process differs between crops. Similarly, contaminants and impurities can enter biodiesel fuel at any of several stages of its production, either where the feedstock is grown, during the conversion process: when being blended with fuel from other sources, while in storage, transit, or finally at the gas pump.
The stated goal of the BQ-9000 accreditation body is to promote consumer confidence of biodiesel fuels by ensuring that fuel meets the ASTM D 6751 standards, to eliminate the need for later, redundant testing of products from certified suppliers (which reduces overheads), and to provide a tracking mechanism for fuel batches to avoid the possibility of substandard fuel entering the market, where problems could damage the industry as a whole.
A producer is granted a 24-month accreditation by the BQ-9000 Quality Management Program following a review of its QA documentation and procedures, an audit of the producer’s facilities, storage, shipping, and blending procedures, and comprehensive testing of samples which are retained for future reference. Producers are expected to maintain their facilities, and must retain samples on an ongoing basis to ensure that fuel continues to meet QA requirements. The body can conduct interviews with staff, inspect production sites in person, and is given access to all technical and procedural documentation used by the company.
Accreditation is not inexpensive, and while most biodiesel producers in the United States and Canada claim to produce their fuel to the ASTM D 6751 standard, the BQ-9000 certification and audit fees of more than US$3,000 has contributed there being less than twenty companies certified for production by the BQ-9000 accreditation body at mid-2007.
In addition to offering BQ-9000 accreditation for producers, the Quality Management Program also offers certification to sellers (and resellers) of biodiesel fuels. The requirements to become a BQ-9000 Certified Marketer are very similar to those for producers, with emphasis placed on handling, blending, storage, and shipping procedural documentation. A marketer certified by the BQ-9000 accreditation body must be selling fuel that it has produced itself with the proper certification, or in the case of resellers, can only come from a compliant BQ-9000 Accredited Producer.
Biodiesel is a rapidly growing industry that promises much for the economic development of the whole world, representing a suitable intermediary for transition from reliance on fossil fuels to other, truly clean energy production techniques. Of all the alternative energy solutions currently being given serious consideration, biodiesel is easily one of the most viable, in that being almost interchangeable with existing fuels, retrofitting costs of existing infrastructure for biodiesel production are minimal.
Apart from the small, but growing levels of available feedstock, one of the major barriers for production has been consumer confidence of biodiesel products, and confusion about suitability for particular engines. The Certified Marketer and Accredited Producer approvals offered by the BQ-9000 accreditation body, the BQ-9000 Management Program, offer a unified, consistent approach to building markets and maintaining the growth of consumer confidence that this flourishing industry needs most of all.