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Olive oil has been a staple of kitchens worldwide for thousands of years, especially in the Mediterranean. Now, Spain’s olive oil industry has found a way to turn the byproduct of the production process – olive pits – into a biofuel that fuels everything from domestic boilers to mills and airplanes.
400,000 tons of olive pits a year
According to Reuters, Spain is the largest producer of olive oil in the world, and 80 percent of that comes from the province of Andalucia. All that olive oil makes for a lot of byproduct. The country is left with over 400,000 tons of olive pits a year.
Luckily, those pits aren’t wasted. Instead, they are turned into biofuel. “Olives are like pigs: Nothing goes to waste,” Pablo Rodero, a project manager at Avebiom, a Spanish biomass association, told Reuters.
The push to use olive oil pits for energy came due to no longer using Russian oil, as well as the poor crop yields and struggles of the olive oil industry over the last few years. Olive oil producers were looking for new ways to maximize the volume of the olives they grow.
Now, olive oil pit based fuel supplies energy to home boilers, industrial boilers, mills, and more throughout the country. David Jimenez Zamora, a farmer, told the news source how he heats his 18th century farmhouse that he rents out to guests, including a covered heated pool using the fuel made from olive oil pits.
Taking flight
Olive pits have also fueled airplanes. In November of 2022, the Olive Oil Times reports, biofuel from olive pits was used to fuel 200 airplanes that flew out of Seville’s airport. Cepsa, now called Moeveglobal, the biofuel producer that provided the aviation fuel said that it saved 200 tons of carbon dioxide emissions by using the biofuel.
Though environmentalist organizations like Greenpeace Spain say that biofuel should come second to electricity when it comes to clean energy, it is still preferable, and cheaper than diesel. This means that many energy companies, like Moeveglobal, have found it prudent to invest time, energy, and money into various biofuels, including olive pit fuel.
The idea of using every bit of a product, whether a food product or otherwise, is part of a growing trend wherein humanity has come to realize their impact on the environment around them. From nose to tail food production to olive oil pit fuel, this speaks to the idea that resources are limited and it is incumbent upon people to think creatively about the ways in which they can reduce waste and honor the Earth..
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