Agrogasoil Diesel for fishing vessels from fishing industry waste

Varying degrees of waste from animal fats in the food-processing and fishing industries are recovered for use in soap making, oleochemistry, pet foods, etc. Any remaining waste is sent to be incinerated or, more rarely, to be methanised. In some cases, energy is derived from the waste in the process.
The AGROGASOIL project will develop a pilot industrial facility capable of using fishing and food-processing waste that contains oil, fish fats and seaweed oils to produce biodiesel and biogas that meet European norms. The project will involve identifying existing and available waste sources in Brittany, developing the necessary industrial treatment chain and examining the possibility of mixing certain types of waste. It will then validate the processing methods and ensure that the quality of the biodiesel obtained corresponds to current norms.
The project will specify the formulation for 'agrodiesel' – a mixture of mineral diesel and biodiesel – that can be used as fuel on board fishing vessels. The project will use only those types of waste that cannot be recovered by other means. AGROGASOIL will look at broadening the product market by recovering biogas from the final waste. This will improve the environmental performance of the whole production process, as will the conversion of waste from the pre-processing facility into electricity, heat and compost.
The economic model selected will include waste producers upstream and end-users downstream. The ultimate aim of the project is to offer the fishing industry 'agrodiesel' at a price that is no longer wholly subject to the fluctuating cost of oil.
The pilot scheme will run for one year and will produce 80 to 100 tonnes of biodiesel from 600 to 800 tonnes of waste. The facility will occupy former fish auction premises on industrial waste ground at the harbour. Production will then be rolled out nationally on an industrial scale from 2011.