Internal combustion engines remain the most suitable sort of power for transport and agriculture and are likely to do so for the foreseeable future. Therefore the development of a sustainable source of liquid fuels is very desirable from many aspects:

• Lessen dependence upon imported fuel.
• Develop alternative sources of fuel to prepare for the day when mineral oils become too expensive to burn as fuel. (This may come much sooner than we think)
• Develop alternative markets for farmers in the fuel sector.
• Provide rural jobs.
• Locally produced fuel to lessen the costs (in energy terms) of farming.
• Fuel from a renewable source – CO2 neutral to help with our international commitments in this regard.

The question is – Is there such a fuel available and at a mature enough stage of development to use in Ireland?

Yes – such a fuel is Straight Rape-seed Oil, which can be burned in diesel engines. In Bavaria, the use of rapeseed oil is well advanced for transport purposes. There are many thousands of cars and other machines running successfully on this fuel.

Government sponsored projects have been successful to adapt larger more highly loaded engines such as tractors and trucks to run on the rape oil. This oil has also been used in CHP units to provide both heat and power to Government buildings including the main parliament buildings in Berlin. Of course they have a net metering system, which allows small producers of power to feed the grid, and all renewable electricity gets 9 cents/kWh as against 4-6 cents/kWh in Ireland.

There are at least six firms selling different modification kits to adapt passenger car diesel engines to burn rape oil.