Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns the environmental effect of rising imports of utilized 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 throughout Europe that imports now account for over half of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

With no testing of what's being available in, professionals think it is also ripe for scams.

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

They have actually encouraged using biofuels as a crucial methods of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks and trucks.

Biofuels are usually a blend of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or vegetables.

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as widely used as components of biodiesel but this practice has been extensively rejected due to the fact that it encourages logging.

So for the last years approximately, making use of utilized cooking oil has expanded massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being a key component of biodiesel with an effective industry emerging throughout Europe to gather and process the item.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year considering that 2014, there just 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 utilized in Europe is imported.

Their study recommends this is highly troublesome when it pertains to influence 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 countries are replacing 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 nations aren't readily available however the flow of UCO is likely to be comparable.

With a population of around 33 million, that's close to three 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, managed to collect around 5 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 formerly utilizing it for," stated Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're just buying more virgin oil and that virgin oil is largely palm oil, because that's the most affordable oil readily available.

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

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the rate of UCO is frequently greater than palm oil. The worry is that some dishonest traders are just diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no screening of the materials is brought out, some experts believe scams is rife.

The idea of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is rejected 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 relevant actions to entirely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He states a new database being developed by the EU will guarantee that trading, certification and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will need to be signed up.

"The combination of modified accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability issues arise in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are concerned that the database idea, which was first mooted in 2018, may not work in stemming believed scams.

The report from Transport & Environment points out that with shipping and air travel seeking to decarbonise by using biofuels, demand for UCO might double over the next decade.

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and dangers of using 'phony' UCO, possibly leading to indirect effects such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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