Call to let motorists make their own car biofuel

THE Government was urged yesterday to help motorists make wider use of alternative fuels.

For a fraction of the €1.08 per litre price of road diesel, “home-brew” kits make it possible for DIY enthusiasts to produce their own biofuel from waste materials.

Used cooking oil — the main ingredient being used — is freely available from restaurants and cafes. Typically, most of it ends up in landfill dumps.

But anyone producing homemade biofuel must still pay Revenue 38c excise duty on every litre produced, a point criticised by Automobile Association spokesman Conor Faughnan.

“There is absolutely no reason the oil we burn in engines has to be the stuff that is dug out from under the Persian Gulf,” he said.

Similarly, Mr Faughnan said, there was “no reason” people should not be able to “refine and refilter used chip fat”.

British suppliers report rocketing sales of biofuel kits after the government there recently allowed anyone to produce up to 2,500 litres a year without paying excise duty. That would be sufficient to run four cars for a year.

This new enthusiasm represents a back to basics for the diesel engine. Rudolf Diesel, who created the engine in 1892, designed it to run on peanut oil. But that changed with the discovery of cheap fossil fuels.