Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fuel Tank
IF YOU THINK you can smell a chip shop next time a Forestry Commission van passes, it might have nothing to do with a logger’s lunch. Instead, it just might be that the van is running on the cooking oil that fried your last meal of fish and chips.
That’s because waste cooking oil is being used as motor fuel in the Forestry Commission’s continuing drive to brew up more sustainable, environmentally friendly ways of caring for the nation’s forests.
The Commission has 160 vehicles using “biodiesel”, which is a diesel-like fuel that is refined from vegetable oil, including used cooking oil, and mixed with the usual mineral diesel.
And in the case of one forestry van being used in a trial in northern Scotland, ordinary diesel has indeed had its chips - it’s sizzling along nicely on 100 per cent used cooking oil that hasn’t even been refined into biodiesel first! And another one in Scotland is doing well in a trial using 100 per cent biodiesel.
As a government department, the Commission is committed to meeting the European Union’s targets for use of carbon-neutral biological fuels, or “bio-fuels” - and it is already well ahead of the target. |
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The target for the use of renewable road fuels derived from organic sources is 2 per cent by the end of 2005, and 5.75 per cent by the end of 2010. However, biodiesel already comprises about 15 per cent of the total road fuel bought by the Commission in southern Scotland, 8 per cent over the whole of Scotland, and 5 per cent over the whole of Great Britain.
Richard Earle, the sustainability development officer with the Commission’s Business Units, which include its Mechanical Engineering Services, reckons that things have been ticking over fine so far. He reports. “All our biodiesel-powered vehicles are running well, with no sign of it doing any harm to our engines, and we’re delighted to be making this contribution to the ‘Greening Government’ programme.
“Vegetable oils are a sustainable fuel because they can continually be replaced by growing more of the plants that we get them from, such as oilseed rape. We can’t do that with fossil fuels such as mineral oil.
“And, for the same reason, they are ‘carbon-neutral’. In other words, they don’t increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. That’s because this year’s crop of oil-producing plants reabsorbs the same amount of carbon from the atmosphere as last year’s crop released, in a perpetual, carbon-neutral cycle - just as our forests do when we replant them after harvesting.
“They are also more environmentally friendly, because they release fewer particulates (minute particles of soot), unburned hydrocarbons, oxides of sulphur and carbon monoxide into the air. And, by using waste oil as a a fuel, we solve the problem of disposing of it after it’s been used for cooking.”
Fuel Oil Source
The vegetable oil used in biodiesel comes from both “virgin” (fresh-from-the-plant) sources and used cooking oil. The used cooking oil is supplied to bulk distributors by restaurants, chip shops and large industrial cooking establishments, such as those that make microwave-ready chips.
The bulk distributors refine it into bio-diesel and sell it on to customers such as the Forestry Commission.
Most of the Commission’s biodiesel-powered vehicles run on a blend of 95% of the usual ultra-low-sulphur mineral diesel and 5% biodiesel. However, car-maker Citroen, which supplies many of the Commission’s small vehicles, recently turned up the heat on mineral fuels when it agreed to honour its warranties on Commission vehicles if blends containing up to 30% biodiesel are used, and the Commission is now trialling 23 vehicles in Perthshire on a 25% biodiesel blend, with no problems being experienced.
Looking ahead, the Forestry Commission is considering trying biodiesel blends in other applications, such as in tractors at its tree nurseries, in heating fuel at buildings that use gas oil, and in its forestry machines, such as harvesters etc.
Beware: Tax Guzzlers
A word of caution to wannabe green drivers looking to make motoring economies by converting their systems as above. Before embarking on this course, they should investigate very carefully just how government rhetoric matches its actions.
Comment is receiving reports that a number of technically-able individuals have effected these biodiesel conversions to their vehicles. They successfully ‘made the change’ on the basis of officially provided figures for liability for fuel duty payments to ‘the Revenue’.
Some have been cheerfully operating for over 12 months, only to be informed recently that their fuel duty liability is nearly three times the expected figure. Demands for payments, backed by the full weight of the law, are being made of them - in some cases for £thousands!
The sums involved show that the price of cooking oil plus fuel tax produces running costs the same as purchasing green diesel at the garage pumps!
This insult is added to the injury that these motorists have already borne the capital costs of vehicle conversion, plus they have endured the hassles associated with this environmentally friendly motoring.
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