Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

comments

354 Comments

New research questions the ecological impact of increasing imports of utilized cooking oil (UCO) into the UK and Europe.

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

But such is the demand throughout Europe that imports now account for more than half of the UCO that's made into fuel.

According to the study, external, there's no method to show these imports are sustainable.

With no testing of what's coming in, professionals believe it is likewise ripe for fraud.

Used cooking oil imports might increase logging

Consumers posture 'growing risk' to tropical forests

Reducing emissions from transportation is showing to be one of the toughest difficulties for federal governments all over the world.

They've encouraged making use of biofuels as an important methods of suppressing carbon from automobiles and trucks.

Biofuels are typically a mix of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or vegetables.

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

Soy and palm oil were when commonly used as elements of biodiesel however this practice has been widely challenged since it motivates logging.

So for the last decade or two, making use of utilized cooking oil has actually expanded enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have become an essential part of biodiesel with a reliable market emerging throughout Europe to collect and process the product.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year considering that 2014, there simply isn't adequate chip fat to walk around.

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

Their research study suggests this is highly problematic when it comes to impacts on the environment.

While UCO is considered a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has actually long been utilized to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what individuals in these countries 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 likely to be similar.

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

By contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed to collect around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is largely palm oil, because that's the cheapest oil available.

"So indirectly, we're simply motivating more deforestation in Southeast Asia."

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the cost of UCO is typically higher than palm oil. The concern is that some dishonest traders are merely watering down shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transportation, and no screening of the materials is brought out, some specialists think scams is swarming.

The suggestion of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is turned down by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who state there are robust certification schemes in place.

"It is widely understood that the European Commission has taken appropriate actions to completely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," stated Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He states a new database being established by the EU will make sure that trading, accreditation and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be registered.

"The combination of revised accreditation plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability concerns 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, may not be effective in stemming thought fraud.

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

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and risks of utilizing 'phony' UCO, potentially resulting in indirect effects such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

Related subjects

COP26

Paris climate arrangement

Climate