From a motor fryer, without breaking the wallet or the planet. This is the meaning of an amendment presented by environmentalists to the draft law on emergency measures for the protection of purchasing power. After the last article, number 20, relating to fuel, the Greens want to insert a twenty-first measure: “The use, as fuel, of recovered used cooking oil”.
“Properly decanted and filtered, 10 liters of used oil can give 8 liters of fuel, usable in a mixture of up to 30% in old-design diesel engines and up to 100% with certain adaptations,” the EELV proposal presumes.
“This fuel rejects up to 90% less greenhouse gases than conventional diesel, emits much less fine particles and costs much less than fossil fuel,” add the Greens.
Surprisingly, while the majority rejected a substantial part of the amendments presented by the opposition during the various examinations in committee, it passed under the Caudines del Renacimiento (ex-LaREM) forks.
End of the world and end of the month
Wallowing in frying oil could have the virtue of reconciling the portfolio with the ecological emergency according to its defenders, and thus enter the line of the “end of the world and end of the month” formula. This appeared in 2018, a few months before the crisis of the yellow vests, in the mouths of politicians (starting with the environmentalist David Cormand as of September 2018).
As it does not require oil extraction, the carbon footprint of this used oil-based biofuel, thus a waste, is low in use. Even more so if it is collected and consumed locally. And its emissions are less polluting than diesel. In addition, its production does not directly require the use of agricultural land, unlike biodiesel produced from rapeseed or palm oil plantations, for example.
The reuse of these used oils, which are normally discharged into the sewage system and are very difficult to extract from the water they pollute, would also make it possible to considerably facilitate the work of wastewater treatment and reprocessing plants.
“Climate, (…) social justice, (…) this ticks all the boxes,” he pleads with the Parisian the co-president of the Greens in the Assembly, Julien Bayou, depositary of this proposal.
A measure long requested in France
It is not “about time”, but rather “it is a little late” that the activists for the authorization of used oil as fuel sigh when they learn of this reform.
In 2013, the regional newspaper the independent told in a report the operation of lovers of frying oil in the engine. With cans in the trunk, gardening gloves, once a week they visited the forty restaurants between Canet-en-Roussillon and Argelès-sur-Mer, in Vallespir and Millan.
Alain Vernet is a volunteer for the “Roule ma frite” collective. In his off hours, he has been collecting frying oils in restaurants for several years and knows his stuff. In 2013, the antenna was born in the Pyrenees Orientales, which he started up alone at the beginning. But the idea already existed in other parts of the territory. Within the same network, each association is independent.
“It’s a bit late” estimates today for Alain Vernet because “the fleet of diesel vehicles capable of swallowing this oil is reduced by the force of scrapping premiums”. While older vehicle engines can absorb filtered nectar, newer engines must require some technical “tuning” to qualify.
“Hindered by lobbyists”
Some SMEs have specialized in the manufacture of these biofuel kits for manufactured engines since the 2000s, but for Alain Vernet, the expansion of the practice is hampered by “the intense lobby practiced by engine manufacturers and oil companies” .
“They will prevent its use in France so as not to slow down its technological research on engines and the extraction of fossil energy,” he fulminates.
Currently banned in France, the use of frying oil in your tank is considered a customs offense in France. The only fuels approved by the list of the decree of January 19, 2016 are authorized.
2010, the glorious year of used oil
In 2010, collectors from the Oléron branch of “Roule ma frite” collected 17,000 liters of oil from 71 different restaurants. “Local elected officials see the work and release a grant for the association,” relates in 2018 a report produced on the site by the monthly newspaper committed to ecology. the age to do.
The activity of RMF17 becomes officially of public utility, fully integrated into the Agenda 21 of the Community of municipalities of the island of Oléron and the experience is spreading to other places, in particular to Charente-Maritime. The purpose of the association: to get this unrefined fuel to the most precarious.
Among the unexpected positive side effects of the operation, the island of Oléron has seen the number of interventions to unclog pipes clogged by grease in its soil halved.
Local channels and tax exemption
For a generalization of this local model on a regional or even national scale, politicians must take into account two things, warns Alain Vernet. The first is “to develop local sectors on an artisanal scale, taking care to avoid the dominance of industrialists who buy back thousands of tons of used oil at the source at a very high price.” As is currently the case with Spanish and Belgian companies such as Quatra Service; for example, and its large blue collection drums.
Secondly, explains “Roule ma frite66” to BFMTV.com, it will be necessary to “establish a fiscal and customs framework that allows the purchase, transformation and commercialization of oils” by communities or associative structures without the price of this skyrocketing. recycled fuel.
“Otherwise, we will never find cheaper at the pump!” warns Alain Vernet.
The association considers that there are about 600 tons of used oil to recover in the territory of companies and merchants and about 500 tons more if we count private consumption, at a rate of one and a half liters per person per year.
“The ideal thing would be for each city to set up delivery points for families”, the volunteers dream, as is already done with compost for green kitchen waste in some municipalities.
The amendment, which will pass among the last, should reach the floor at the end of the week, after days of intense debate, if we are to believe the first discussions on Monday. Julien Bayou, who tells BFMTV.com that he has not yet had any discussion with the majority on the issue and only learned of the admissibility of his proposal on Monday night, seems to show little hope.
“We have very few admissible amendments,” he laments. But if the presidential party wants “something concrete for purchasing power, it is an immediate measure that also makes it possible to fight against water pollution,” he pleads one last time before joining the arena of the Palacio-Borbón on this explosive text.
Source: BFM TV
