Just-food.com.

A specialist committee of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has declared that manufacturing biodiesel is a safe way of disposing of so-called category 1 animal by-products, that could spread BSE [Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy -- mad cow disease] or CJD. [Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease -- a similar disease in humans. There is some evidence that BSE can cause a variant of CJD (vCJD) in humans.]

EFSA’s panel on biological hazards has concluded that because the material at the start of the production process is rendered and treated at 133 Celsius for 20 minutes, “it may be concluded that the resulting biodiesel (and by-products) do not carry a TSE [Transmissable Spongiform Encephalopathy] risk.”

With this, the EU is joining the USDA in supporting investigation into this approach. Recall from an earlier post that the USDA is putting up a $50 million loan guarantee to encourage finding ways to do just that.