 |
|
Chocolate fuels a carbon-negative voyage from England to Timbuktu
England's BioTruck team aims to promote greener alternatives to fuels like ethanol.
By Irene Caselli | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitorfrom the December 21, 2007 edition
Page 1 of 2
London - While others eat their way through advent calendars this Christmas season, two Britons are doing something quite different with their chocolate: using it to drive across the Sahara.
More precisely, Andy Pag and John Grimshaw are fueling a 4,473-mile journey from Poole, England, to Timbuktu, Mali, using 3 tons of discarded chocolate converted into 396 gallons of fuel.
While the expedition might sound like an attempt at making the Guinness World Records, it's actually aimed at showing off greener alternatives to fossil fuels and even biofuels like ethanol. And they claim the trip will be the world's first carbon-negative voyage.
"That means that we will actually be saving emissions that would be in the atmosphere if we'd stayed at home," says Mr. Pag, whose "BioTruck" carries with it two large plastic vats of the chocolate-turned-fuel.
According to CarbonAided, the independent company that is evaluating the trip's carbon footprint, or lack thereof, they will be able to save 15 tons of emissions thanks to a combination of techniques.
As well as emitting fewer greenhouse gases, biodiesel burns more efficiently and so releases fewer harmful pollutants than conventional diesel.
Moreover, all the expedition's equipment, including the truck and the two four-wheel-drive vehicles (which also run on biodiesel) that will take them to Timbuktu, has been salvaged from the scrap yard and will remain in Mali where it will continue to be used. They hope to offset more carbon by taking a small processing unit to convert waste oil products into fuel, which they will donate to a charity in Mali.
But the trip would not be carbon-negative were it not for the nature of their fuel, made by recycling waste chocolate – misshapen Easter eggs and bars, and other products that would otherwise go to landfills and decompose, creating methane gas.
Ecotec, a British company that researches and produces biodiesel, developed the technology, although it says it did not organize the expedition as a public relations stunt. The trip was the result of Pag's insistence.
Looking at his scruffy clothes and the rusty vehicle, it looks as if Pag, a filmmaker, and Mr. Grimshaw, a mechanic, are trying to travel on the cheap more than for the environment.
The two met eight years ago while crossing the Sahara on motorbikes, and now they say they regret the effects of high carbon emissions in the area.
RSS feed
