How UU fuels cars off fat of the land

Biodiesel is more environmentally friendly than conventional mineral diesel as a cleaner-burning fuel, reducing emissions.

The use of 42.5 tonnes of pure biodiesel would equate to a displacement of 254 tonnes of carbon dioxide, or the equivalent of taking 136 cars off the road in just four weeks, UU said.

Fat, oil and grease poured down drains poses a major headache for water companies because it cools and solidifies. It has to be removed periodically to prevent blockages, and would ordinarily then have to be disposed of at landfill sites.

UU said it was “working on highlighting other locations across the North West where we may be able to extract fat, oil and grease to save costs and at the same time, help the environment”. These were likely to be areas with high concentrations of food outlets, such as Blackpool and central Manchester.

“We’re always looking at innovative new technologies to lower our emissions,” a spokesman for UU said. “This one is still at the feasibility stage as it remains to be seen if the technology will be economically viable, but the potential is huge and really exciting.

“It’s early days but if we can recover sufficient volumes of fat, oil and grease to make it commercially viable then we could look to sell it or trade it for processed biodiesel to run our fleet.”

UU has a target of reducing its carbon emissions by a fifth over the decade to 2015 and says it is on track to do so. It already generates 100 GWh of renewable electricity a year, generated using biogas from sewage processing.

It is also investigating whether biogas could be used to fuel its fleet of more than 4,000 vehicles.

They could run on either compressed bio-methane, or a dual system also using diesel. UU previously explored doing so a few years ago but found it would not be economic. However, it said that developments could make it financially viable.

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