The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday showcased the manufacturing of biodiesel refined from waste cooking oil, which the agency said is a valuable resource with the potential to generate domestic sales of about NT$3 billion (US$96.3 million) annually.
At a news conference in Taipei, EPA Department of Waste Management Director-General Wu Sheng-chung (吳盛忠) demonstrated how biodiesel can be obtained via simple chemical reactions in waste fool oil.
Pouring methanol and an alkaline fluid into a beaker filled with waste cooking oil, he said that to produce biodiesel the three liquids are first mixed in the correct proportions, with caustic soda or sodium methoxide added as a catalyst.
The solution then undergoes a process known as transesterification, during which heat and pressure are applied to transform it into biodiesel, Wu said.
It is at this stage that crude glycerine, a by-product that can be used in soapmaking, is obtained, he said.
To make industrial-grade biodiesel, the process is more sophisticated, and the end product must pass tests stipulated by the Bureau of Standards and the EU before it can be sold to oil reprocessing firms, he said.
About 26,000 tonnes of waste cooking oil were recycled in the first half of this year, Wu said.
About 10,000 tonnes were exported — predominantly to South Korea — while about 16,000 tonnes were used by local firms to make biodiesel, Wu added.
He said that the amount of biodiesel exported in the same period was about 6,000 tonnes, with the biggest buyers being UK and Malaysian reprocessing firms.
As biodiesel is more costly abroad, it gives domestically produced biodiesel a competitive edge, he added.
Touting biodiesel as a clean fuel that helps the nation work toward its carbon reduction goals, Wu said that as the fuel has an oxygen content of about 18 percent, it can be fully combusted, thus driving down carbon dioxide emissions.
It is also a healthier alternative to traditional diesel, as it does not produce the potentially carcinogenic polycyclic hydrocarbons that are associated with burning diesel, he said.
He said that more than 100,000 tonnes of biodiesel are derived from recycled cooking oil every year, which have an estimated total market value of about NT$3 billion.
Biofuel is the fourth-largest primary energy source worldwide, after coal, petroleum and natural gas, and the production of biodiesel skyrocketed from 800 million liters to 26.3 billion liters between 2000 and 2013, he said.
He said that the EPA would continue talks with the Ministry of Economic Affairs to promote biodiesel.
“After putting it [biodiesel] to a test for six to 12 months, I believe that the Ministry of Economic Affairs will be more confident [in the fuel],” Wu said.
Energy Bureau Division Director Weng Cheng-yuan (翁正原) said the ministry in May last year terminated a project by state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, Taiwan, to refine biodiesel after the fuel received negative feedback from private firms, who said that biodiesel tended to cause their vehicles to generate less power.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS