The Bahamas project
Cooking oil converted to one million litres of bio-fuel in The Bahamas
lastminute.com is working with Climate Care on a sustainable energy project in The Bahamas that converts waste cooking oil from cruise ships, tourist restaurants and hotels into bio-diesel. The bio-diesel is to be used by local businesses such as tourist shuttle companies and tour boat and dive operators for land and marine transport.
What is the project about?
Diesel fuel is a major source of greenhouse gas pollution, partly as a result of vehicle exhaust emissions and partly as a result of emissions during the extraction, refining and transport of the fuel. By contrast used cooking oil is collected and transformed locally into a substitute fuel with very low greenhouse gas emissions.
What progress has been made?
Climate Care has been working with Cape Systems in The Bahamas to develop the project. Cape Systems has already established a pilot bio-diesel processing plant, which in recent years has produced small quantities of fuel from used cooking oil for use on the New Providence Island. The new expanded plant is currently being constructed, and Cape Systems are busy securing contracts for the supply of used cooking oil and for purchase of the new fuel. Production from the new plant will start in January 2007.
What does this project do for climate change?
The project will produce one million litres of bio-diesel in the first year of operation, rising to two million within five years. This will substitute approximately the same quantity of petro-diesel and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 2,000 rising to 4,000 tonnes of CO2 annually. The project will also have an educational aspect, as Cape Systems is a subsidiary of the Cape Eleuthera Foundation, which operates two schools and a research institute devoted to environmental education in The Bahamas.
What is being done to monitor the project?
The greenhouse gas emission reductions will be calculated on the basis of quaterly reports submitted to Climate Care by Cape Systems. Key data will be the amount of electricity used for mixing and heating, the amount of methanol additive, and the sales figures for bio-diesel.
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