Your choices:
1 Process heat (> 1000 °C); 2 Wind; Fuel: liquid
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | Electricity |
| Biomass (solid) | Electricity | Process cooling (< 0 °C) |
| Geothermal | Fuel: Gaseous | Process heat/steam (50 - 150 °C) |
| Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| Water | Fuel: Solid | 1 Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| 2 Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
Today, there are bio-based diesel substitutes available on the commercial market, one of the more well-known being RME or Rape-Methyl-Ester though the more general name is FAME or Fatty Acid Methyl Esters. The primary market for these fuels are the transport sector where the willingness to pay is the highest. Unless taxation and other economic incitements radically change, there will be one major reason for a process industry to switch from fossil fuel to liquid biofuel, and that is to strengthen the companies' green profile.
These fuels are produced using a low-temperature chemical conversion based on fatty acids. The raw material can be excess vegetable oil from agricultural production, rapeseed oil, soybean oil and alike but also residual cooking oils from – for example – restaurants or from food processing. The current biodiesel production amounts to some 20 million m3 of FAME per annum, the main part of which is produced from palm oil, soy, rapeseed oil and waste oil/fat, where the latter resources is so far only minor. There may be reason to consider the palm oil extraction and its ecological and social effects prior to taking a decision to replace the use of fossil fuel oil with a large-scale use of FAME.
So though there is no technical problem to replace the use of fossil oil for process heating with a product from residues and waste, there will be ethical/social and economic hindrances.