Henan province capital, Zhengzhou, is laying out plans for significant development of biodiesel production.
Cooking oil Image: ReneS |
The city's municipal government has announced a 'roadmap' to boost local biofuel output using waste cooking and vegetable oil and animal fats to be re-cycled at five plants. The sites, the largest belonging to Henan Runheng Bio-Energy, currently have a combined output of some 115,000 tonnes a year.
The city authorities are looking to boost production to meet anticipated biodiesel demand which is estimated at 450,000 tonnes of the 3.5m tonne total fuel requirement by 2016.
Finding feedstock for biodiesel production should not be a problem, with around 3m tonnes of food waste generated in Zhengzhou every year. Cooking oil residue alone is being converted to around 90,000 tonnes, with grease waste producing a further 30,000 tonnes.
The authorities are working with Hunan University and a range of consultants to establish waste management sales and recycling processes and to develop an industrial centre for wast re-cycling and biofuel production.