• Which vehicles can run on vegetable oil?

    •  
  • How much does it cost to convert and run on vegetable oil?

    •  
  • Home

    •  
  • Selecting and buying fuel 

    •  
  • Legal issues – tax on fuel in the UK

    •  
  • Message forum

    •  
  • Problems and drawbacks of running on vegetable oil 

    •  
  • Applications in developing countries

    •  
  • Links

    •  
  • Gallery

    •  
  • Contact





































    		•

    Following technical difficulties we were forced to take the gallery off-line but it's now up and running again you can visit it by CLICKING HERE . . .
    Environmental issues

     The two issues that are most commonly discussed are carbon dioxide and particulate emissions. Concerns over carbon dioxide relate to the release of this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere adding to problems of global warming. The problem with fossil fuels is that they are releasing carbon trapped in the earth which adds to that in free circulation. Too much carbon in the atmosphere is likely to trigger an irreversible cycle of global warming hence the drive to get emissions down to a lower level. The plants that produce vegetable oil consume carbon dioxide - this is then released when the organic matter breaks down (composts) or is burnt. The carbon dioxide is then absorbed by the plant during the next grwoing season. There is therefore no net addition to the carbon in free circulation. Vegetable oil which is used as a fuel is therefore 'carbon-neutral'.

     Other factors worth taking into consideration…..
  • Vegetable oil is edible - diesel is toxic and potentially carcinogenic - which would you let the kids play with?
  • It takes far less energy to produce vegetable oil - if vegetable oil is used to power harvesting machines then we can create a totally renewable energy source.
  • Bio-diesel has the advantage that it can be used in almost all diesel cars without conversion and it feeds from the same vegetable oil pool but the process of converting the oil involves the use of toxic chemicals.
  • Carbon dioxide is the principal greenhouse gas, with concentrations in the atmosphere rising at approximately 0.5 per cent per annum. The United Kingdom alone contributes an estimated 2 per cent to global man-made emissions of carbon dioxide.
  • Waste oil works just as well as fresh oil so its most sensible to use the oil for cooking first then filter out all the bits and use it for fuel.
  • In the UK we currently grow around 2 million tonnes of oilseed rape per year. This yields about 0.6 million tonnes of rapeseed oil which is the equivalent of 5% of diesel consumed in the UK and that's without growing any more than we do at the moment. Sunflower and soya oil is also in abundance although we import a lot of this.
  • Any waste products from vegetable oil filtering and handling can be composted.
  • Nitrogen oxide emissions are roughly the same with vegetable oil and DERV