Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

remarks

354 Comments

New research concerns the ecological effect of increasing imports of used 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 saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the need throughout Europe that imports now represent over half of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

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

Used cooking oil imports may improve deforestation

Consumers present 'growing risk' to tropical forests

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

They've motivated using biofuels as an essential ways of suppressing carbon from automobiles and trucks.

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

The fact that these crops can be re-grown and take in more CO2 means they counteract the carbon given off when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were as soon as widely used as elements of biodiesel but this practice has actually been commonly challenged due to the fact that it encourages logging.

So for the last decade or so, using utilized cooking oil has expanded massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being an essential part of biodiesel with an efficient market emerging throughout Europe to collect and process the item.

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

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

Their research study recommends this is highly bothersome when it comes to influence on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has 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 but 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 utilized oil that's gathered and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million individuals, handled to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're simply purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is mostly palm oil, because that's the most inexpensive oil available.

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

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

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no screening of the products is carried out, some specialists think fraud is rife.

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

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

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

"The mix of modified accreditation plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems occur in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database idea, which was first mooted in 2018, may not be reliable in stemming thought scams.

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

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

Related subjects

COP26

Paris climate agreement

Climate