Ryhope Engines Museum looks to reduce its carbon footprint with new biofuel

Ryhope Engines Museum has been trialling the use of a new biofuel created as a biproduct from rapeseed oil.

Transcript

00:00OK, the

00:29company we produce rapeseed oil for cooking purposes.

00:41Rapeseed oil is produced from rapeseeds, tiny little black seeds.

00:47The amount of oil in those seeds is about 40% and the other 60% is rapemeal, which comes

00:54off the production of rapeseed oil as a solid material, but in small pieces.

01:03And what we're doing here is taking those small pieces, forming them into briquettes

01:10and making a solid fuel.

01:12So I can see that we've got one of the rape briquettes there and we've also got a traditional

01:16piece of coal.

01:17When you come to burn these two products, what's the difference in carbon emissions

01:21then?

01:22Well, coal is between 80 and 90% carbon.

01:28The rapemeal is around about 60% carbon, but it is a sustainable, renewable source of energy,

01:40whereas coal has taken millions of years to produce.

01:42OK, and Les, I know you're trialling this at the museum, at the annual boilers there,

01:47so why were the museum so keen to get involved in trialling this product here?

01:51Well, the availability of steam coal over the last few years is becoming more and more

01:55difficult to get a hold of.

01:57And also the public want us to go more eco-friendly, basically to use a fuel that's sustainable.

02:06Phil's kindly approached us to do this trial today, where we'll be burning the briquettes

02:11instead of conventional coal, and hopefully if it's successful, which there's no reason

02:16to suspect it won't be, we'll then disseminate all our information to other steaming buildings

02:25to basically get the message out that it's possible to burn eco-friendly fuel from rapeseed,

02:33the by-product of the rapeseed industry, to do away with having to use steam coal.