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Trip to Timbuktu powered by chocolate

Ferry Online Travel News 26/11/2007

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Two men are making several ferry crossings and taking on the desert in order to raise awareness of biofuel

Two British men left Poole, on England's southern coast, last Friday on an epic journey to Western Africa. What makes their trip to Timbuktu so special is that they will be driving and they won't be driving just any car either. Andy Pag of London and John Grimshaw of Poole will be making their way to Africa in a Ford Iveco Cargo truck powered by biodiesel fuel made from waste chocolate.

The journey from London to Timbuktu is around 4,500 miles and includes crossing the Channel and the Sahara Desert. If all goes according to plan, the duo should arrive in Mali on December 16th.

The destination is just part of the pair's goal, however, with the trip hoping to accomplish a broader aim of educating the public about biofuel and climate change.

"If we use biodiesel to get to Timbuktu with a standard engine, there's no reason why people in the UK can't use it for their commute or school run," said Pag.

After ferrying across the Channel, Pag and Grimshaw will drive across France and Spain and take another ferry across the Mediterranean to Morocco. The trip will continue through Morocco to Mauritania and then west across the Sahara to Timbuktu.

To make the trip, the BioTruck will carry 2,000 liters of biofuel produced from 4,000 kilos of chocolate mistakes donated from a confectionery company. The idea to convert waste chocolate into fuel was developed by a firm in Lancashire called Ecotec Resources UK Ltd.

Using this technology, a liter of chocolate-derived biodiesel costs approximately 15 pence a liter.

"Biodiesel is a perfectly suitable replacement for fossil diesel, in fact it has better lubrication qualities than fossil diesel and recent tests by Porsche on behalf of Mercedes proclaimed that the qualities of biodiesel could extend an engine's life considerably," the company says.

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