US meat processor, Tyson Foods, which generates around 2.3bn lbs (about 1000 tonnes) of animal fat/year as part of its food processing operations hopes to be able to turn most of it into biofuel by the end of the year, according to a report by Reuters on Planet Ark.
This is not the first time that Tyson has looked at using the waste products associated with food production. In 2001 it looked at chicken litter as a potential fuel. In January this year it formed Tyson Renewable Energy as a division to look at the possibly of using its waste materials as biofuel feedstocks.
The volumes are likely to be high, and I guess mostly biodiesel of some sort.The question though will be whether it will be competitive with other biofuels if the price of grain starts to rise...but then there's the possibility of cross-subsidising from processed food.