A New Tradition in Rural Housing

One thing you can be sure of in the Royal Welsh Show is that you will meet people with interesting and exciting ideas. This is exactly how CPRW's Director met John Jones, a Caernarfon man in exile in the wilds of Cumbria. John is lecturer in Land-Based Studies at the Newton Rigg Campus of the University of Central Lancashire at Penrith and he was at the Royal Welsh to illustrate, amongst other things, how the College has been experimenting with alternative fuel for diesel.

Newton Rigg teaches about alternative fuels as part of a programme of their alternative 3Rs

Reduce
Re-use
Recycle

But they do not just 'preach the gospel' as it were, they do their utmost to put ideas into practice - hence, the Millennium Tractor. A lecturer (who has since left the college),

Allan Watson, has been experimenting with converting waste cooking oil into bio-diesel and many of the agricultural machines at the College have been running on this fuel for some time. Basically, the College cleans the oil, removes the glycerine and adds its 'special ingredient' and then pours the fuel straight into the tank.

To prove the point to the length of Britain, Newton Rigg students mounted their Millennium Tractor dubbed 'The Massey Mazola' in John O'Groats on May 31st and arrived at Lands End 16 days later having travelled all the way on chip pan oil!

The initial product!

'Massey Mazoia' travelled over 1,184 miles on county roads and used approximately 550 litres of cooking oil running at a rate of 12 miles to the gallon (for those of you not converted from Imperial to metric!). The project was much more than that though. The project involved twelve schools from Wick to Penzance who supplied the used oil, free from their kitchens. Prior to the tractor arriving at the schools, a mini-bus converted into a mobile lab obtained the cooking oil and prepared the fuel, ready for the next top up. Much was made of 'Massey Mazola' in the local press and media as it trundled its way south.

Bio-diesel is nor a new 'invention'. In fact, the inventor of the diesel engine itself, Rudolph Diesel used peanut oil as fuel in a diesel engine in the Paris Exposition in the last century. Bio-diesel itself is available in many parts of the world for use in diesel engines; this is not the case in the UK.	The by product
In fact, the UK is very particular about the fuel people use and how much can be extracted from it by Her Majesty's Government. For the tractor to use the fuel on the road, special permission had to be obtained to allow manufacture in the bio-lab. Very strict records had to be kept of the waste oil collected at each school. how much was converted to bio- diesel and how much was put into the tractor. The Customs and Excise thus collected 52 pence duty for every litre used (even though the oil had been supplied free ') which amounted to about Ł300 which the students had to find. As John Jones said, "This is a small price to pay if it helps school children to have greater awareness of what can be done towards a cleaner environment."
And, of course, this is what it was all about. The Royal Commission in their report 'Energy - the Changing Climate' published in June this year called for a revolution in energy policy and declared that "major lifestyle changes" are required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK. The direct action suggested by the Royal Commission to decrease the UK emissions by 60% over the 50 years include increased taxes for drivers, as well as inflated gas and electricity rates for home users. To show the scale of the changes required, the Report describes four scenarios for 2050 representing various combinations of approaches, all of them involving a substantial reversal of the present use of energy and fossil fuel.

The question has to be asked whether this Government (and any subsequent government) is prepared to make the radical decisions that the Royal Commission makes absolutely clear have to be made if we are to do anything of real consequence about our C02 emissions. One such decision would be to promote bio-diesel fuel by investing in full-scale research and reducing taxes on less-polluting fuels.

The final product

The use of this environmentally friendly oil does not come without its problems. Despite appealing for the oil to be relatively 'bit free', particles of left over chips and fish fingers were found within 'n the fuel, adding to the already unusual exhaust smell!

But this is where properly funded Research and Development would help. We might riot all want to be travelling in what would smell like mobile chippies but surely the technology is available to do the job - what about fitting an odouritic converter... ?

The Millennium Tractor was great fun for students and school children but the message it carried with it was deadly serious. As John said "All we wanted to highlight was the fact that everyone can make a positive contribution to the sustainable environment. We're unlikely to find a 100% solution to the problem faced by the world's depleting fuel sources, so we need to look at the smaller solutions; bio-diesel, wind energy, solar energy and hydro electricity."

Yes, by all means. As we know, no solution is available without drawbacks and we must not jump on any fashionable band wagon but continue the full and proper search for the alternatives. Newton Rigg has shown the way. Many thanks to, John Jones for letting us use the material. Perhaps next time you see a queue outside the chippy it will be for fuel for the car and not food for the belly!

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