Gutter oil goes green, powering cars in Shanghai

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Gutter oil typically sparks revolting images of squalid restaurants or grease traps. But now the notorious substance is opening up the imagination for greener possibilities, as it becomes recycled into biofuel that is making its way into gas stations and powering clean vehicles.

Twenty sanitary vehicles tanked up on recycled gutter oil at a Sinopec gas station in Shanghai on Tuesday, a milestone in recycled waste fuel entering the energy market in China.

The gas station in Fengxian District has two biodiesel oil tanks, selling the biofuel at 5.72 yuan (0.86 U.S. dollars) per liter, while at an adjacent pump, standard diesel sells for 6.02 yuan.

The oil company said another gas station in Pudong District is also preparing to begin vending the cleaner fuel.

A trucker inspects his vehicle before filling up in Shanghai. /Reuters Photo.

Yang Jinsong, director of the Shanghai Food and Drug Administration, said the Shanghai municipal government would continue to encourage the market-oriented operation of biodiesel production and sales, and encourage widespread use in the city's buses, sanitary vehicles, cargo trucks and cargo ships on Yangtze River.

Lou Diming, a professor at the School of Automotive Studies at Shanghai-based Tongji University, said biodiesel produces 10 percent less heavy metal substances and fine particulate matters, and 80 percent less nitric oxide emissions compared to exhaust emissions from ordinary diesel.

On average, Shanghai recovers 150 tonnes of gutter oil per day. Recycling the waste has provided incentives for waste oil recovery from restaurants, said Zheng Shusong, deputy secretary general of Shanghai Food Safety Work Federation.

He said in the past, restaurants paid to have the waste oil treated, while now they can sell the oil to the city's recycling outfits.

The city government has designated Shanghai Zhongqi Environment Technology Co. Ltd to dispose of the city's leftover cooking oil and turn it into biodiesel. The recovery process is closely monitored and trucks with special licenses for transporting gutter oil are equipped with GPS devices.

The Sinopec logo. /Reuters Photo.

Zhang Xuewang, chairman of the board, say that as the recycled fuel gets distributed by Sinopec's sales network, Shanghai Zhongqi Environment Technology can finally see the market value of the product they are processing.

The company previously provided the fuel on a small scale for 104 buses and 32 sanitary vehicles in the city. By the end of September, the company had sold 5.86 million liters of biodiesel. However, much of the cost is subsidized by the government.

Zhang said the cost per tonne to recover gutter oil is about 3,600 yuan (542 US dollars), while the processing cost is 2,000 yuan per tonne.

Individual users may still have doubts over the reliability of biodiesel in powering their vehicles, Zheng said.

In many Chinese provinces such as Anhui, Yunnan and Hainan, the local government has promoted biodiesel use through government-sponsored demonstration projects, said Lin Jianmin, a senior engineer with Sinopec.

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Source(s): Xinhua News Agency