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A former computer programmer has developed a process by which waste cooking oil can be converted into a fuel which can be used to run diesel-powered cars.

According to the Scotsman, Alexander MacDonald, using a simple process, converts old cooking oil into biodiesel that can go directly into the fuel tank of any diesel-powered car.

The newly developed fuel has far lower levels of harmful emissions than traditional fuel, and at 96 pence a litre, is also cheaper.

For collecting the cooking oil that would otherwise be thrown away, MacDonald visits about 100 restaurants in Glasgow.
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The world’s biofuel industry is being accused of driving up world food prices and causing instability and starvation in developing nations.

Here in Australia, the Federal Departments of Agriculture and Resources are conducting their own review of the industry, due later this year.

But Peter Anderton, the chief executive of biofuel manufacturer, AgriEnergy Limited, claims the government could fix the industry’s problems by changing just one piece of legislation to make it more competitive.

“At the moment, ethanol is restricted to ten per cent in Australia,” he said.
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GM says it is investing in a company that makes ethanol economically out of nonfood plant matter.

The investment in Boston-based Mascoma comes at a time when the whole ethanol industry, as well as the U.S. government, is under fire for pushing ethanol too fast when it can only be made from corn on a mass scale. That policy has helped drive up the cost of corn, as well as food, and helped, many argue, drive food shortages in developing countries.

GM President Fritz Henderson said the investment in the company is because of its “best-in-class microorganisms and enzymes could lead a transformation to a new era of biofuels.”
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A new diesel biofuel derived from sugarcane is to be launched in Brazil after an accidental discovery made while researching malaria cures, the US and Brazilian companies producing it said Wednesday.

John Melo, the head of the US company Amyris involved, explained that one of his bio-engineers stumbled on the process while working on the Artemisia anti-malaria medicine.
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Tractors and Farm Equipment (TAFE) on Friday said its entire sub 100 HP range of Massey Ferguson tractors, but one, has been made compatible for use with bio diesel.

“These tractors can use the current five per cent blend of regular diesel with diesel produced by esterising vegetable
oils obtained from corn, jatropha, rape seed etc,” TAFE said in a statement.
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Using crops to produce fuel is “criminal” as the world suffers a food shortage, Venezuela’s oil minister said in Rome where energy ministers from around the globe are meeting to discuss investment plans.

“Look at the effect it has, the craziness,” Rafael Ramirez told reporters today in the Italian capital, where he is attending the three-day International Energy Forum. “All countries, and particularly in Latin America, have problems with food stuffs. It is such a bad idea to use foodstuffs for fuel, it is criminal.”

The U.S. and Europe have been encouraging the development of fuels made from crops such as corn and soybeans to limit their dependence on oil imports as prices reach a record. Biofuels are also being promoted as a renewal energy source to limit climate change.

Global food stocks are at their lowest since the 1980s, according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization as food lines form in the Philippines and soaring rice prices cause riots in Haiti and Egypt. Biofuels are partly to blame for rising food prices because they displace crops that might otherwise be used to feed people or animals, oil industry officials said.

“Biofuels illustrates that in politics nothing is that easy,” U.K. Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks said in a Bloomberg Television interview at the energy forum in Rome today.
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