Biofuels

Christchurch specialty meats producer Verkerks is paying for a lot less energy after taking a fresh look at how it generates heat and processes waste.

By converting the boiler to burn tallow, a meat processing byproduct, Verkerks will likely cut their energy costs by $150,000 a year.

The boiler at the company's processing plant produces steam for heating the smoke houses and fermenting rooms, and water heating.

Until recently the boiler operated only on diesel, consuming around 7,000 litres - and thousands of dollars - every week.

The Lazy Shag backpackers in Kaikoura has had a multi-oil clean burn boiler installed to supply the hostel's hot water, slashing the business's electricity bill.

The boiler is fired with used cooking oil purchased at low cost from other local businesses. The reduction of the backpacker's carbon footprint sits well with Kaikoura's, and the country's clean green image.

Ethanol has many favourable attributes when considering it for use in general everyday motoring as well as high performance race applications. Its status as a sustainable fuel when sourced from waste or by-product biomass, combined with good combustion, thermal and anti-knock properties, along with a tendency to reduce CO2 emissions, has prompted this investigation into the advantages of petrol-ethanol blends compared to conventional motorsport fuels for use in race vehicles..

Fundamentally biofuels must deliver significant greenhouse gas reductions compared to the fossil based fuels that they are being substituted for, as it is on this belief that consumer demand for biofuels is soaring worldwide. Sugarcane based bioethanol remains one of the best performing commercially available biofuels. Even with transport of bioethanol from Brazil to New Zealand taken into consideration, the energy output of Brazilian ethanol is still better than fossil based petrol.