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Those that can directly replace petrol or diesel in conventional combustion engines have been touted as a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels, with fuels derived from food waste cutting greenhouse gases by up to 94%.

Someone explain to me how burning vegetable oil instead of diesel can have as low as 6% the amount of greenhouse gas emissions. I find it hard to believe breaking a hydrocarbon doesn’t release that much carbon dioxide.

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6 points

They get to subtract out all the carbon captured by the growth of the source plants the biofuel was made from.

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And probably all of the carbon emitted in the production of diesel, from extraction, to transporting, to refining. Vegetable oil - in guessing, I don’t know - is far less polluting.

I didn’t read TFA, but if this can use waste vegetable oil, even if with some processing, there’s even more savings as you can discount much of the production cost as a dual-use savings.

I’ll agree with GP, though, that 6% seems incredibly optimistic.

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