A BRITISH chemical company has claimed it has found a way to create fuel from solid waste.
Ineos Bio say their patented method can produce 400 litres of ethanol from one tonne of dry waste, which could be either agricultural, organic commercial or municipal solid waste.
This is made by heating the waste to produce gases, then feeding these to bacteria which make the ethanol that is purified into fuel.
Peter Williams, chief executive of Ineos Bio, said: “This should mean that, unlike with other biofuels, we won’t have to make the choice between food and fuel.”
Ineos plans to sell this environmental product in industrial quantities by the end of 2010, which could save motorists a lot of money from rising petrol and diesel prices.
This bioethanol would, however, have to be mixed with a fossil fuel because few cars in Britain or Europe are built to run on this fuel alone.
The European Union aims for 10 per cent of its road transport fuel to come from renewable sources by 2020, with many governments backing biofuels as a key way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
