Vegetable oil fuel trial set to take place in Bedford to cut council vehicle emissions

Bedford Borough Council is to trial the use of hydrotreated vegetable oill to help reduce vehicle emissions, the portfolio holder for environment, highways & transport has said.

Councillor James Weir (Conservative, Great Denham) said using the oil would reduce the council’s truck fleet emissions by 90 per cent.

“Which is 1,200 tons of carbon if we introduce it fully,” he told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

“There is a downside to it, of course, it costs £0.5 million more in fuel than if we stuck to traditional diesel. But those are the trade offs you’ve got to make.

“I’ve committed £100,000 to doing this and we’ve got a small enough tank to be able to run the trial,

“If we prove that it delivers what it promises to, and all the evidence says that it will, then we have to decide whether to agree to the £0.5 million commitment.

“Any expenditure of this size needs to go to full council. So it’ll be interesting to see whose green credentials would be on show.

“But it’s something we want to do, it is something that I think is a must. But finances will determine which decision people will make.

“I’ve made my decision, I want to spend the money so we need to find it somewhere.

“We need to do it because it’s a big chunk, 1,200 tons of carbon, and we want to reduce carbon emissions by 6,450, so that’s a sixth of it straight away – if we can do that,” he said.

Councillor Weir admitted that as well as the cost, there is a second downside to using hydrotreated vegetable oil as a fuel.

“If it is successful and more and more people are starting to use it, is there going to be enough supply,” he said.

“It’s not a limitless supply, but I see this as something that we can do by 2030 that will help reach carbon net zero and then hopefully by 2030 something else will have come along, such as hydrogen,” he said.

With many correspondents calling the recent COP 28 agreements “disappointing” why should Bedford Borough Council bother being net carbon zero when it’s just a small council, and a tiny piece of the whole world, the LDRS asked.

Councillor Weir said: “You could say that about almost everything. If everybody didn’t bother, didn’t try or didn’t strive to achieve something the world would be in a worse state.

“We should just continue to do as much as we possibly can and encourage others to do it. And that’s the bit, what we are doing as a council is absolutely right.

“But it’s minuscule because it’s only the things that we can directly affect. We need a bigger plan, which’ll take a lot of money, to try and get the whole borough to become green, such as the council paying to get homes insulated, by offering deals for taxis to change to electric vehicles, or whatever.

“The answer to why bother is you’ve got to bother, everybody has got to bother. And the more people that bother, the better it becomes.”