After almost a yearlong hiatus, the Steamship Authority (SSA) restarted its pilot program to fuel its largest ferry with a renewable diesel fuel.
The SSA Board unanimously approved for the ferry line to purchase RD99 at an unbudgeted cost of $165,000 to fuel the Island Home, its largest vessel, on Tuesday, July 21. This would cover 200,000 gallons of fuel to be used from Aug. 1 to Dec. 31.
Alex Kryska, SSA general manager, said the ferry line couldn’t start sooner because of limited supply of the renewable diesel fuel. But now the ferry line can again get RD99 from its Stoughton-based fuel distributor Diesel Direct.
“The Island Home is really the target vessel,” Kryska said. “Each time she starts up from port, you can definitely have a noticeable plume of smoke coming out of her.”
RD99 is a hydrotreated vegetable oil that is commonly used in the West Coast as an alternative to regular diesel. In California, certain commercial vessels like ferries are required to use RD99. But the West Coast state subsidizes the usage of the manufactured fuel, according to Kryska, who was a chief operating officer of a San Francisco-based ferry operation called PROP before joining the SSA.
“They’re sucking up all of the supply, literally,” Kryska said. RD99 is roughly 83 cents more expensive per gallon than regular diesel, but Kryska said there’s hope that increased demand for the manufactured fuel would lower costs. He noted another East Coast ferry line, Staten Island Ferry, uses RD99.
Still, perpetually using RD99 isn’t cheap, and Steamship leadership noted it would cost roughly $3.4 million in additional expenses if used for a full year in the Island Home. During the first pilot period, June 1 to Sept. 1, 2025, to test whether it would be a viable option for the whole fleet, the Island Home burned through 200,000 gallons of fuel, according to Mark Rozum, SSA comptroller and treasurer.
The fuel would reduce Steamship ferries’ greenhouse gas emissions by 50 to 78 percent. This would also help the SSA to contribute to Massachusetts’ goal to halve carbon emissions by 2030.
Peter Jeffrey, board chair and Falmouth representative, asked the SSA to explore the possibility of paying for the entire fleet’s usage of RD99 or at least continued use for the Island Home without needing to increase fares.
