Next generation biofuels to turn human waste into diesel

Britain could meet much of its future energy demand by turning waste products such as wood, plastic bags and even human sewage into transport fuels, scientists said yesterday.

So-called "second generation" biofuels could also be produced from agricultural wastes such as straw, as well as farmed energy crops such as willow, and would be free of the controversies that surround current green fuels. A network of waste converters across the country could produce a third of the diesel required by UK motorists while slashing greenhouse gas emissions, the scientists said.

Jeremy Tomkinson, head of the Non-Food Crops Centre in York, said: "This could offer enormous carbon savings and all we need is a source of renewable carbon. We put it in a box and fuel comes out of the other end." Such biofuels are considered environmentally benign because the carbon produced when the fuel is burnt was absorbed from the atmosphere by the plants or trees used to make it.

Scientists at Canadian biofuel group Dynamotive have already turned human sewage into bio-oil.

Dr Tomkinson said such second-generation biofuels addressed concerns over food production and tropical deforestation because they would not compete with crops or require extra land. He said some environmental campaigners had made biofuels a scapegoat for existing problems, despite only 3% of palm oil being used to make them. About 85% of palm oil goes to make food and 8% to the pharmaceutical industry, he said.

A study by the centre said second-generation biofuels could cost as little as 35p a litre to make, although each production facility could cost as much as £300m to set up. The waste would be burned in low-oxygen conditions and then chemically converted to diesel. Dr Tomkinson said the UK would need to invest in such facilities to avoid importing biofuels to meet future emissions targets.

Scientists at Canadian biofuel group Dynamotive have already turned human sewage into bio-oil using a different technique and are looking at ways to scale up the process to commercial quantities. In February 2005 the company opened a commercial-scale plant in Ontario that produces 22,000 tonnes of bio-oil each year from waste wood chips.

Meanwhile, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report in Nature today a way to make a new biofuel from simple sugars. The team developed a catalytic process that converts fructose into a potential fuel with an energy density 40% higher than ethanol.

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