Hawaii
Energy Policy Forum > 2002
Articles
Chicken
fat to power lorries
Martin
Wainwright
Tuesday October 29, 2002
The Guardian
The supermarket
firm unwittingly at the centre of a cooking-oil car fuel
scam has decided to try running its own fleet of lorries
on waste from kitchen frying pans.
Starting
in January, Asda trucks of up to 40 tonnes will carry startling
slogans saying "This vehicle is powered by chicken
fat" - the biggest boost yet for the legal use of
recycled cooking oil on Britain's roads.
Lorries
making deliveries on Tyneside and in Yorkshire will be
the first to try the fuel, which is currently available
on three forecourts in Yorkshire. A further eight garages
in the region are to take supplies from the growing number
of biodiesel refiners, who were given a 20p-a-litre green
tax concession by the chancellor, Gordon Brown, in July.
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?"
Company
trials of "chip pan fuel" for Asda's cars and
lorries were then intensified after the firm's innocent
involvement last month in a moonshine operation at Llanelli
in South Wales. A special "frying squad" set
up by Dyfed Powys police discovered that hundreds of
drivers were running their cars on Asda's "extra-value" cooking
oil mixed with methanol at home, in a moonshine operation
which dodged tax.
The 32p-a-litre
fuel supply - compared with 73p at forecourt diesel pumps
- was cut off when Asda discovered its Llanelli branch
was selling vastly more oil than anywhere else in the country.
Rationing was imposed and the police frying squad - whose
tactics included
sniffing out the chip-shop smell of bootleg cars - moved in.
The planned
Asda fleet fuel, like all commercial biodiesel, is completely
legal but will still undercut conventional diesel prices
by at least 10p a litre. Converting an in-house product
like the waste oil will add to savings for the firm.
"Oil's
a finite resource and we are fully aware of the fact that
we shouldn't be wasting it," Ms Fellows said. "This
is real eco-innovation - trials already show that chip
pan fuel emissions are up to 40% lower that diesel."
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