Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

remarks

354 Comments

New research questions the ecological effect of rising imports of used cooking oil (UCO) into the UK and Europe.

Chip fat and other oils are considered waste, so when they are used to make biodiesel it conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the need across Europe that imports now account for majority of the UCO that's made into fuel.

According to the study, external, there's no chance to prove these imports are sustainable.

Without any screening of what's coming in, professionals believe it is also ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports may improve logging

Consumers present 'growing threat' to tropical forests

Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be among the hardest difficulties for governments all over the world.

They have actually motivated the use of biofuels as an important methods of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks and lorries.

Biofuels are generally a mix of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or .

The truth that these crops can be re-grown and take in more CO2 suggests they counteract the carbon produced when used in engines.

Soy and palm oil were once extensively used as parts of biodiesel however this practice has actually been commonly challenged since it encourages deforestation.

So for the last years approximately, using utilized cooking oil has broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have become an essential element of biodiesel with an efficient industry emerging across Europe to gather and process the product.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year because 2014, there merely isn't enough chip fat to walk around.

According to a report from the campaign group Transport & Environment, external, more than half of the UCO utilized in Europe is imported.

Their study suggests this is highly troublesome when it concerns effect on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been used to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what people in these nations are changing the UCO with, when it is exported.

In 2019, Malaysia exported 90 million litres of UCO to the UK and Ireland. Figures for their exports to other European countries aren't readily available however the circulation of UCO is most likely to be similar.

With a population of around 33 million, that's close to 3 litres per head of used oil that's collected and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million individuals, handled to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are buying it, they have less utilized cooking oil to utilize on the things that they were formerly utilizing it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mainly palm oil, because that's the most inexpensive oil readily available.

"So indirectly, we're just encouraging more deforestation in Southeast Asia."

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

Because of need from Europe, the rate of UCO is often higher than palm oil. The concern is that some dishonest traders are just watering down shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transportation, and no testing of the products is brought out, some specialists think scams is rife.

The idea of scams anywhere along the chain of supply is turned down by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who say there are robust accreditation plans in place.

"It is extensively understood that the European Commission has taken pertinent actions to totally suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He says a brand-new database being developed by the EU will make sure that trading, certification and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.

"The combination of revised accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will make sure that no sustainability problems occur in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

Others in the field are concerned that the database concept, which was first mooted in 2018, might not be effective in stemming presumed fraud.

The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and air travel seeking to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, demand for UCO could double over the next decade.

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and dangers of utilizing 'fake' UCO, possibly causing indirect effects such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

Related subjects

COP26

Paris environment arrangement

Climate