The race is on to find the best ways of turning what we class as waste product now, into black gold!
 A Canadian biofuel maker, Enerkem, is claiming to be ready to commercially produce a second generation biofuel from no less than old utility poles. They are starting with utility poles and turning them into a synthetic gas, known As SYNGAS, which will then be converted from a gas to a liquid. This process will then produce ethanol and methanol which they are aiming to use for 5% of the gasoline and diesel sold throughout Canada by 2010. Looking towards the future, Enerkem claim they will one day be able to use all the waste left from recycling and composting and convert it into SYNGAS.

San Francisco announced last week that they are currently planning to build a plant that will convert brown grease from restaurant cooking into biodiesel. This type of waste product is also known as FOG, (fats, oils and grease.) it is found collecting in sewer traps or blocking the sewers when the traps overflow.

There is also the debate whether to solve the problem of FOG before it starts, a company called Grease Reduction Systems sells microbes that eat away at the grease before it gets to the sewers and leaves nothing but water.

Obviously a big plus to using FOG is that by removing it from the sewers it should reduce if not prevent totally costly blockages in the pipes. On the other hand FOG has to be greatly refined due to it being 97% water, this process could be costly due to the energy required to do this. Even though a trial has been done it isn’t yet know quite how much energy will be needed due to the fact that latent heat and recycled water was used from the plant.

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