London buses to be perked up by coffee to reduce emissions

LONDON - A coffee-based biofuel will be used to help power London's public buses from Monday in a bid to reduce transport emission, local media reported.

Bio-bean, a green-energy startup, said it has produced enough coffee-derived biofuel to power one bus for a whole year, the BBC reported.

The company collects waste coffee grounds, mostly from London's coffee shops, for processing and tops the resulting mixture with a range of animal and vegetable oil.

The final mix, consisting of 80 percent diesel and 20 percent biofuels, can reduce carbon emissions from a bus journey by 10 percent to 15 percent, the AFP reported.

The buses can be powered by the new biofuel without the need for modification, said the company.

Londoners consume 2.3 cups of coffee a day on average and produce a total of 200,000 tons of coffee waste a year, according to Bio-bean.

To push its green initiatives, the United Kingdom capital has increasingly turned to biofuels for its public transportation.

According to the reports, biofuels produced from cooking oil and tallow from meat processing. already power some of London's 9,500 buses.

Bio-bean founder Arthur Kay said the company hopes to expand next to France, where 38 billion cups of coffee are consumed a year.

Xinhua

(China Daily 11/21/2017 page11)