After four years of testing everything from soybean oils to french fry grease as fuels, the Toro Co. will introduce biodiesel-powered mowers and a hydrogen fuel cell utility vehicle Thursday at the massive Golf Industry Show in Anaheim, Calif.
Two dozen models of Toro’s new biodiesel ground-equipment will be on display at the world’s largest golf show, as will Toro’s new diesel-to-biodiesel conversion kits that range from about $30 to $500. The kits will hit the market in June. Toro’s new turf equipment will be delivered to commercial customers in 2008, officials said.
Toro has branded the equipment “Biodiesel Ready,” meaning it can run on 20 percent vegetable oil and 80 percent petroleum, a blend known as B-20. Vehicles that run solely on biodiesel fuel could be on the market as early as 2009, said Steve Wood, Toro’s biodiesel project manager.
If Toro timed its market entry right, it should beat lawn-care competitors into the alternative fuel world, Wood said.
“The time is right for Toro and the industry to commit to this effort,” CEO Mike Hoffman said. “Our biodiesel readiness initiative is part of a commitment to developing innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers and help to better the environment.”
The Bloomington, Minn.-based manufacturer joins a growing list of vehicle makers turning to alternative fuels. Ford Motor Co., General Motors and Toyota build hybrid cars that can run on electricity, gasoline and biodiesel fuel. Arctic Cat of Thief River Falls, Minn., is building an ATV that runs on B-20. And Toro and automakers are all working on hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. Toro is displaying one fuel cell prototype at the golf show today in addition to its new biodiesel products.
Toro has spent about $380,000 on fuel cell research. The company’s effort to go “green” began in 2002 with requests from several customers. About a dozen Toro engineers began tinkering with used vegetable oil from restaurants and virgin soybean oils before finding success with soybean blends and special filters, hoses and pumps durable enough to handle the plant-based fuel without clogging or disintegrating, Wood said.
Toro partnered with the Palm Aire Golf Course in Pompano Beach, Fla., making the course its test site while converting all of its turf maintenance equipment and testing biodiesel fuels there.
“We ran all our equipment for two years and selected certain equipment for another year and a half of testing beyond that,” Wood said.
The resulting product line will be launched today before 25,000 U.S. and international golf course superintendents, owners and club managers, spokesman Branden Happel said.
Municipalities and sports field managers could become the next target market after golf courses, Wood said. Municipalities have long been interested in using alternative-fuel vehicles for groundskeeping and maintaining sports fields, he said.
Dick Hemmingsen, director of the University of Minnesota’s Initiative for Renewable Energy and the Environment, thinks Toro is making a smart move into biodiesel.
“Turf maintenance is a surprisingly huge industry in this country when you look at all sorts of turf, whether it’s recreation fields or softball or soccer fields, parks, golf courses, etcetera. It’s a huge market,” Hemmingsen said. “Making more efficient engines for that application will make a big difference in our overall energy consumption and in our overall emissions profile.”
Toro, with $1.8 billion in annual revenue, supplies equipment that maintains many NFL, baseball, and college fields and has provided Walt Disney World’s turf maintenance equipment since 1998. The company also controls about 60 percent of the U.S. golf irrigation market.
Toro also announced Wednesday that it is working with New York state to test three prototype utility vehicles that are powered by hydrogen fuel cells as part of that state’s commitment to use more green vehicles. New York is contributing $380,025 toward the project.
Toro will give the three vehicles to the Niagara Falls State Park Department by the middle of this year. The vehicles are designed to be nonpolluting, relatively quiet and easier to refuel than battery operated vehicles, company officials said.
Small engines like the ones found in lawn equipment are some of the largest polluters.
Small gasoline engines are big polluters. With either no, or token, emission controls, primitive combustion techniques, and typically significant spillage and evaporative losses, they damage our environment out of all proportion to the useful work they accomplish. On a scale comparable to our gasoline and diesel-fueled cars, they are killing us.
…
Our societal love-affair with them is hard to understand on a rational basis. They are noisy, smelly, dirty and often hard to start. They use toxic, carcinogenic, flammable, explosive fuel that has to be acquired off-site, then transported and stored and carried to the machine. Some require mixing gasoline and oil (trademark of the 2-stroke). Many require the use of a rope starter. They produce toxic emissions that prohibit their use indoors. Somehow, we have taken all this and convinced ourselves this is “convenient”. If you care about the air you or your family breathe, or the water that you or your family drink, or the climate you or your family live in, you have to understand that small gasoline engines are a significant problem as they pollute our air and contaminate our water. We simply have not grasped the scale of the issue.
(via)
Get off you fat butt and use a push-mower.
I’m getting rather worried that the proliferation of ideas utilising “biofuels” will mask the key issue, that we are using far to much fuel in the first place. Biofuels are no better that so-called offsetting : they are just guilt reduction. One day, when all the land has been ploughed up and the carbon released from the soil, and the forests are flattened and we are carrying on burning our green biofuels like we did with oil, then we might wonder where we went wrong.
Think of it this way : George Bush is a supporter of biofuels. Do you need any more reasons to be wary of them?
Sorry, Naib, but I can’t see the promotion of biofuels as being a good thing.
There are two reasons biofuel is better.
Since it is grown, it consumed some CO2 in the production process (dino fuels did as well but that was some time ago). I’m led to believe there are those who think CO2 is an evil thing.
The emissions from burning biofuels are reported to be less than dino fuel. I have to take them at their word.
You are correct that changing habits is a far superior answer. If you can get the general population to conserve energy will you get them off of those stupid “reality” shows next – please?
There is an evolutionary path here. We start by getting off of dino, go to cleaner fuels, then get off of burning altogether. Yes, it takes time.
BTW, never politicize a scientific argument – you lose credibility.
Hi RT
George Bush has shown by his actions (not his political position) to be the antithesis of environmentalism. So by definition, if George Bush supports it then I am supsicious. The same could be said for Fred Singer – but fewer people have heard of him.
The other points are fair comment though. CO2 is consumed during the growing, but then released during the burning – so we must keep growing – and here’s the important point – in a way that ensures a net reduction in emissions.
Keith
Indeed, I trust no one, but I try to keep my distrust in check as well. Anger can blind you to reality if it goes unchecked. Beware of painting with too broad of a brush.
Another way to look at this is, if a person is thoughtful enough to pay the money to switch to a biofuel mower they are probably concientious in other ways as well. The are just doing the best they can with the products available. They may avoid using pesticides. They may have flower gardens that the smaller coinhabitants of the earth enjoy. They may compost their waste. I’m not saying gas burners don’t do these things as well, I just think a bio burner would be more likely. Any one who grows plants is helping the CO2 problem.
The bio burner may also more likely to switch to electric (if there is a model that will handle their yard). Take your allies where you can get them. The not-green-enough attitude is counter productive when you are trying to convince people to change.
Interesting –
At HUGR (www.hugr.com) we converted Toro equipment to biodiesel starting in 1999.
Disney burned our fuel in the forward swept batwing pictured above a couple years back.
Guess they liked our ideas.
HUGR
Biofuels are better but they are just a bandaid. Improving the world takes many small steps however, and why not start here? Larger sustainability measures can come in later.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for no compromises, push-mowing, or no mowing at all–ie, grow food or let the land lie fallow.
“Get off you fat butt and use a push-mower.”
No, I use a robotic lawn mower, which is electric and costs me an additional 10 dollars a year in electricity to mow my 1/2 acre lot. There’s no way I’m using an old push lawn mower, ever. If I ever go back to using a gas hog I would be surprised. These little robotic mowers are too fun to watch and enjoy. Instead of talking about going back to the old days, innovate, come up with something new.
And anything large enough to not use a robotic, you don’t want to use a push mower on. Check out the reviews at http://www.bambots.com
I wonder if these are going to be difficult to maintain, or difficult to find parts for?