Sponsored by
'Green' initiative is put in the van
Chesterfield Special Cylinders has teamed up with Sheffield City Council to show how organic waste and gas from sewage plants can be turned into a 'green' fuel for cars and vans.
The Meadowhall company recently launched a subsidiary called Chesterfield BioGas, to sell equipment which turns raw biogas from sewage plants and the anaerobic digestion of organic waste into biomethane.
Now it has linked up with the council in an environmental initiative to demonstrate how easy it is to use biomethane as an alternative fuel.
The demonstration vehicle is a VW Caddy EcoFuel van, which is already being sold on the Continent and goes on sale in the UK this summer.
It has a range of 350 miles on a full tank of biomethane – which is no different from the natural gas which people use for cooking and to heat their homes. It also has a 13-litre petrol tank, which it automatically and smoothly switches to should the gas run out.
Biomethane has been used to fuel most of Stockholm's buses for years and Chesterfield BioGas and the city council hope that by running the biogas-powered Caddy around the city centre they will encourage businesses and people to switch to the more eco-friendly fuel.
Chesterfield BioGas says the UK market for biomethane has remained untapped, largely due to limited availability of methane-fuelled vehicles and subsidies for combined heat and power plants, which make using biomethane to augment the gas going into the nationwide grid uneconomic.
The firm says both these issues are now being addressed – with Mercedes and Volkswagen now producing right-hand drive methane fuelled vehicles for the UK market and the Energy Bill paving the way for financial incentives for biomethane to be pumped into the gas grid.
And it adds that Biomethane has virtually no carbon footprint, relying entirely on waste products to g enerate the raw methane gas and comparing favourably with the use of electricity to power vehicles, which may be very environmentally friendly in themselves, but whose 'green' credentials depend on how the electricity was originally generated.
What do you think? Add your comment below.
Buy The Star - Monday to Saturday - for local news, sport, features and ads. To subscribe CLICK HERE
READ MORE
Main news index
Your letters
Features
South Yorkshire's environmental news
Kids Zone
More business news
More Rotherham news
More Doncaster news
More Barnsley news
Latest sport
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
