Britain´s first bioethanol production plant has opened and plans to use sugar beets to produce bioethanol to reduce the UK´s carbon footprint by 0.7-0.8m tonnes per annum - about 0.4% of the UK´s total emissions.
The bioethanol produced at the plant will be sold to fuel blenders who mix it with petrol and sell it on the forecourts of petrol retailers. Supermarket fuel routinely contains a proportion of bioethanol in regular unleaded petrol.
The biofuel produced at the plant will be equivalent to taking 35,000 to 40,000 cars off the roads in the UK in terms of their carbon emissions, according to officials.
Each year 110,000 tonnes of beet will be used at The British Sugar plant in Wissington, Norfolk, which has an annual production capacity of 70m litres.
"These production facilities represent the marrying-up of British agriculture and British engineering technology," said Lord Rooker, the Minister for Sustainable Food and Farming.
Under the Government´s Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) five per cent of fuels used in the UK must come from renewable sources 2010.