Half the emissions, all the fat
Posted: October 29th, 2002 | 1 Comment »Following on from being an unwitting accomplice in the “Welsh drivers using cooking oil instead of diesel” controversy, British supermarket chain Asda has started running its fleet of lorries on reprocessed chicken fat:
Asda produces more than 50m litres of used cooking oil and 138,000 of waste frying fat every year from its canteens, restaurants and rotisseries. The gunge was a disposal headache rather than a potential money-earner until an unexpected phone call last spring.
“We were approached by a biodiesel firm, which cleans up waste cooking oil, adds a bit of methanol and sells it as a much cheaper alternative to diesel,” said Rachel Fellows of Asda yesterday. “We were only too happy to do business with them.
“But then we thought: hang on, isn’t there something we can do here for ourselves?”
Biodiesel, while being a combustion fuel, is not only considerably cheaper than normal diesel but releases only 40% of the emissions, as well as being “simple to use, biodegradable, nontoxic, and essentially free of sulfur and aromatics.” (see the FAQ) Plus, “Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments.”, which may be of interest to Californians.
thanks alot california