Sustainability

There is currently a great deal of discussion on the sustainability of biofuels in general. To read newspaper reports in some parts of the developed world, you could get the impression that biofuels were responsible for many of the worlds ills, from the rising price of food to the cutting down of the world's rainforests. 

Let's take a closer look...

Rising food prices has more to do with rising mineral fuel costs, fertilizer costs, failed harvests and with growing demands for cereal crops in the far east than with the very small amounts being used for biofuels.  In fact less than 7% of all vegetable oil is used for biofuels with most demand for oil being from the food industry especially as China and India increase their demand.

Loss of rainforests is happening for general economic reasons, in short, until managing the rainforests is made to be as economically viable for local communities as cutting down the rainforests to make way for cash crops then the world will continue to lose its rainforests.

If the developed world wants to save the remaining rainforest environments, having lost their own forestation millennia ago to economic growth, then the developed world has a responsibility to pay for rainforest preservation.

At EuroFuelTech we believe that proven sustainability is essential for biofuels to succeed.  That is one of the reasons that we have focussed our technology on biodiesel, the most sustainable biofuel currently available as a replacement fuel for existing combustion engines.

At EuroFuelTech we acknowlege that there are existing examples of unsustainable and environmentally unfriendly biodiesel projects.

These most often occur when projects are designed to replicate the business models of other, older industries such as the petrochemical industry where 'bigger is always better'.

At EuroFuelTech our technology is based on:95% of our customers in Europe and North America use Waste Vegetable oil

  • closed systems with no waste streams or groundwater pollution
  • modularity
  • flexibility of feedstock oils
  • taking the processor to the crop to minimise transport
  • using multiple small units instead of large plants to minimise transport and distribution networks

This ensures our whole approach is as sustainable and as environmentally friendly as possible.

Over 95% of our customers in the developed world produce biodiesel from recycled waste vegetable oils or animal fats.

A Biodiesel Plant in West Africa on a plantation providing food and fuel for local use.In the developing world, over 90% of our installations are on sites providing local communities with both food and full fuel independance for domestic and agricultural equipment including the generation of electricity.

 

 

 

Sustainability Characteristics of Biodiesel 

  • Reduced reliance on geological oil, a finite resource.
  • Reduced emission of greenhouse gases.
  • Generation of employment in regional and rural areas.
  • Diversification of income in regional and rural areas.
  • Improved air quality, especially in urban areas.
  • Recycling of waste oil.
  • Reduced pollution of water courses.
  • Decreased reliance on external supplies of oil and increased security of energy supply.