London buses to be powered by coffee grounds

London's love for coffee could help power a third of the capital's bus network.

As part of ongoing efforts to reduce pollution in the capital, London's buses are set to utilise a new source of fuel: coffee grounds. Thanks to a collaboration between Bio-Bean, Shell and Argent Energy, double deckers will be filled with a B20 biofuel created by blending oil extracted from coffee waste with diesel. So far, they've produced enough to power one London bus for a year, but as Londoners drink 20 million cups of coffee a day, it could provide enough oil to power a third of Transport for London's entire network.

Bio-Bean's plant can recycle 50,000 tonnes of waste coffee a year. The company collects waste from high street coffee shops, as well as instant coffee factories, and uses it to extract an oil. This is then mixed with other fats and oils to create a 20 percent biocomponent of B20 fuel. Buses don't need to be modified either, keeping costs low.

Fuels like Bio-Bean will provide a greener alternative as London continues to introduce greener methods of transport. Mayor Sadiq Khan has said that from 2018, all new single-decker buses in the centre of the city will be zero-emission, helped by a sizeable fleet of hybrid electric buses. However, the end goal is to have a zero-emission transport system by 2050.



https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/20/london-buses-coffee-biofuel/

I never touch the stuff.

Neon Knight wrote:I never touch the stuff.

I'm coffee addict. Irish coffee is my favourite. Budapest should try this, my coffee grounds wouldn't waste.

I like tea, too.

Magyar Lány wrote:

Neon Knight wrote:I never touch the stuff.

I'm coffee addict. Irish coffee is my favourite. Budapest should try this, my coffee grounds wouldn't waste.

I like tea, too.

I don't drink tea either Mostly water from the tap. If everyone was like me, lots of energy would be saved by not boiling water or not importing coffee and tea

Neon Knight wrote:

Magyar Lány wrote:

Neon Knight wrote:I never touch the stuff.

I'm coffee addict. Irish coffee is my favourite. Budapest should try this, my coffee grounds wouldn't waste.

I like tea, too.

I don't drink tea either Mostly water from the tap. If everyone was like me, lots of energy would be saved by not boiling water or not importing coffee and tea

It's a good habit. I drink tap water, too, but I like mineral water more. Tap water is full with chlorine & almost totally white. Sometimes I can feel the smell of chlorine.

I will post about it, well done Lany
It’s a good news, and step by step it’s better for our planet.

How energy efficient is it to extract all that oil from the coffee grounds? Sometimes, these green initiatives actually use up more energy than they produce, offsetting the benefits.

OsricPearl wrote:How energy efficient is it to extract all that oil from the coffee grounds? Sometimes, these green initiatives actually use up more energy than they produce, offsetting the benefits.

Yeah, I wondered that. Also with electric cars, the battery energy has to come from something to begin with. But they would reduce pollution in towns and cities.

Bio fuel is not a new technology,it has been around for a long time. In the USA it was mostly made from vegetable and soybean oil.
The environmental green people have a problem with type of fuel too.


The ghttp://www.thecropsite.com/articles/1771/environmental-impacts-of-biofuels/rowth of biofuel production from crops will have a direct impact on the land and the environment writes TheBioenergySite Senior Editor, Chris Harris.
One of the major reasons for producing biofuels is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to mitigate the effects of global warming produced by fossil fuels.

However, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN, some unintended impacts of biofuel production are on land, water and biodiversity. They are affected by agricultural production and if the agricultural production is intensified then the side effects are even greater.

The common conception is that growing crops for biofuels will offset the greenhouse gas emissions because they directly remove carbon dioxide from the air.

However, the FAO in its The State of Food and Agriculture 2008 report, says that scientific studies have shown that different feedstocks grown for biofuels have different environmental effects.

"Depending on the methods used to produce the feed stock and process the fuel, some crops can even generate more greenhouse gases than do fossil fuels," the report says.

Lol you can not win with the hard core green environmentalists,they will not be satisfied until we all take turns pulling each other around in rickshaws

Sary wrote:Lol you can not  win with the hard core green environmentalists,they will not be satisfied until we all take turns pulling each other around in rickshaws  

That would help a lot with the obesity epidemic as well

Neon Knight wrote:

Sary wrote:Lol you can not  win with the hard core green environmentalists,they will not be satisfied until we all take turns pulling each other around in rickshaws  

That would help a lot with the obesity epidemic as well

Funny!

Sary wrote:

Neon Knight wrote:

Sary wrote:Lol you can not  win with the hard core green environmentalists,they will not be satisfied until we all take turns pulling each other around in rickshaws  

That would help a lot with the obesity epidemic as well

Funny!

I didn't specifically have the U.S. in mind with that joke, just the West in general.

I need to cut down on the sweet stuff myself, otherwise I'll be in the 'take care' zone.