Diesel burning with a doughnut smell

By Kurt Sansone

Diesel engine buses and heavy commercial vehicles belching black smoke and leaving an unbearable stench behind them might be a thing of the past. It will if the production of bio-diesel is given the necessary stimulus to become commercially viable.

Bio-diesel is a ‘green’ fuel produced by recycling waste cooking oil and it is a perfect replacement for fossil diesel (today's diesel made from crude oil). It without producing half of the toxic greenhouse gases that normal diesel does and leaves behind a yummy smell of doughnuts.

This isn't fiction. For the past year the Edible Oil Company in Marsa has been researching and producing bio-diesel by recycling cooking oil collected from catering establishments.

Commercial Manager Pippo Psaila, talking to MaltaToday explained that, after months of development, the company is now testing the fuel on two of its pick up trucks and the results are very encouraging.

Mr Psaila described the workers’ reaction to the project. "At first workers were cynical about the idea. They could not believe how a car could run on ‘cooking oil’ as they called it, but for some months now we have used the fuel to power our pick up trucks and the engine performance has been very good. Now they are less cynical about bio-diesel because they've seen it work."

Mr Psaila added that diesel vehicles could be shifted onto bio-diesel without requiring engine modification. Better still bio-diesel has certain properties that make it a better lubricant thus reducing the wear and tear of engines.

"Bio-diesel has seen massive growth over the last three years worldwide with the European Union alone accounting for the consumption of 250 million gallons," Mr Psaila said. It is worth noting that the first diesel-engine, over a hundred years ago was run on peanut oil, making bio-diesel an age-old discovery.

The raw material to produce bio-diesel, used cooking oil, is not that scarce in Malta with more than 5,000 tons of edible oil hitting the market. But Edible Oil only manages to collect 200 tons of used cooking oil with the rest probably going to Maghtab or down the drains.

Mr Psaila explained that the company is offering a financial incentive to catering establishments, which could be the prime source of raw material. "For every 20 litres of used cooking oil returned to us we give back for free, one litre of edible cooking oil. In addition we provide the container and collect the oil ourselves," Mr Psaila explained. A number of industrial establishments with ISO certification and large franchise establishments are providing the bulk of the used cooking oil currently being converted into bio-diesel.

By law catering establishments are obliged not to dispose of oil and grease down the drains but as with everything else enforcement is lacking. Unfortunately the waste oil is discarded and with it a precious renewable fuel is lost.

"It requires a cultural change," Mr Psaila remarked. "We are co-ordinating with the environment department to introduce the practice of separating used cooking oil along with the other waste separation schemes to be introduced shortly," Mr Psaila added.

The consumer price of bio-diesel would depend on a number of factors. Mr Psaila explained, "it would obviously depend on the economies of scale. It also depends where we get our raw material: whether t from Malta from abroad."

The company has not yet started producing commercial amounts of bio-diesel but it would be a welcome encouragement if government decided to reduce taxes on the final consumer price to make it competitive with normal diesel.