Chocoholics can assuage any guilt they may feel after a new process was developed that turns the by-products of making chocolate into a biofuel — meaning you can eat your chocolate and be eco-friendly.
A truck, fuelled by the biofuel, will set out from Poole on the English south coast to Mali in West Africa later this month on a charity mission.
“The chocolate waste used to be used in landfill. But now we can make it travel as biofuel,” said organizer Andy Pag who will be one of the two drivers on the trip.
North western English firm Ecotec has taken waste from the chocolate manufacturing process, turned it into bio-ethanol and mixed it with vegetable oil to produce biodiesel.
The BioTruck will depart on November 26 and is expected to take about three weeks to drive the 4,500 miles to Timbuktu where it will off-load a small biofuel production unit with the local MFC charity.
Trader Joe’s 72% special dark rules! I just hope Belgians start recycling the waste. They certainly know about the advantages of diesel.
Folks trapped in the wonderful world of manufactured lives often miss the point that pretty much everything that starts out as vegetable matter can be fermented, tailored to a use, recycled. Little or no additional energy is required excepting for distillation.
The process in and of itself allows for renewables – instead of just chucking everything into a landfill and buying more stuff. Like oil.
TJ’s 72%? Our household goes through a kilo a week.
meh
#0 Correct, this will be a popular move in EU where diesel is the norm. Thinking outside the box.
American equivalent, Hershey, is just a load of crap. As one of America’s oldest company, they are a great example of consumerism gone wrong. They just want a better profit by sacrificing on quality of construction.
I would love to eat a 1920’s authentic Hershey bar recipe today, would actually be willing to pay a premium for it.
Hershey petitioned the FDA to remove COCOA BUTTER as the main ingredient, and to continue to legally say on the package “Chocolate”.
In 2007, the Chocolate Manufacturers Association, whose members include Hershey, Nestlé, and Archer Daniels Midland, began to lobby the FDA to change the legal definition of chocolate to let them substitute partially hydrogenated vegetable oils for cocoa butter as well as artificial sweeteners and milk substitutes. Currently, the FDA does not allow a product to be referred to as “chocolate” if the product contains any of these ingredients.
In fall 2007, Hershey changed their milk chocolate recipe by adding lactose, milk fat, and the food additive PGPR.
mmmmm, the exhaust smells like french fries dipped in chocolate.
On the other hand, will chocohol be good for chocoholics?
Cocoa plantations are supposed to be the main remnant of slavery existing today. Most are small farms, scattered through the tropics around the world, so this sort of slavery is going to be difficult to eradicate.
The bean, which is used to make cocoa, grows in a pod similar to the pomegranate. The pulp has long been used to make cheap booze.
Well, “cheap” if you live in the area.
I agree, though Trader Joe’s 67% with Cocao nibs is what rocks my world.
#5
They’re Europeans remember? As long as is high quality they don’t mind if it has been done by slaves, wiped an entire acre of rainforest, killed the animal’s mother and the entire pack just for him, or harvested by mobsters at the expense and future of the locals.
Americans want the cheapest no matter what the cost while the Europeans want the most expensive no matter what the cost.