Over 2.2 million homes across the British Isles rely on oil to heat their homes, with no access to the national gas grid. Burning kerosene to fight against Winter’s touch seems to be the only reasonable option these home owners have. It’s certainly more financially viable than connecting these homes into the grid. Until now, it’s been the optimal solution.
It’s unsurprising that this arrangement is drawing more and more attention. With companies and individuals alike becoming more carbon-aware, and so many advancements happening in renewables, this is an excellent target for improvement.
It would be unrealistic and unfair to expect this oil dependency to go away overnight: for people to simply stop. Connecting these homes to the gas grid would be inordinately costly, and using electricity is just as inordinately costly for the home owner. Not to mention the huge renovation costs associated with a total overhaul of the heating system.
So the ideal solution would shake the status quo as little as possible. Both to encourage people getting on board and to keep costs down.
Biofuel, the futuristic dream liquid of the past is back once again.
And this time, it’s got some extra tricks.
More specifically, we’re talking about Biodiesel, made from natural fats and oils. In many ways, you could consider it the extra-extra-extra-fresh equivalent of crude oil, before millions of years have worked its compressive magic on it.
And yet it works in near enough the same way as conventional diesel. So near, in fact, that it’s already in broad use in many applications. The majority of commercial lorries and city buses in the US already guzzle the stuff to move around. Many modern diesel engines can run on it almost as well as fossil fuel diesel as-is. And in terms of carbon footprint, it’s significantly superior.
So scientifically, environmentally, and economically speaking, it’s sound.
It’s so sound that you might start to wonder why we’re not using more of it. Why not use biodiesel for heating? And what a great question that is.
OFTEC are leading the charge in this new vector of attack on carbon emissions, having commissioned independent reports on how possible this may be. Turns out it’s not only possible, but practical too. With an entourage of other big organisations, they’re collectively committing to make it a reality.
It’s hard to find a downside to this. In fact, the only substantial difficulty may prove to be supply. With the extra attention this draws to biofuel technology however, this might even lead to brand new biofuel solutions altogether. Not too shabby.
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