Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

comments

354 Comments

New research study 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 utilized to make biodiesel it conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

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

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

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

Used cooking oil imports might increase deforestation

Consumers posture 'growing threat' to tropical forests

Reducing emissions from transportation is showing to be among the most difficult challenges for governments all over the world.

They have actually motivated using biofuels as an essential methods of suppressing carbon from vehicles and lorries.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as widely used as parts of biodiesel however this practice has actually been widely challenged due to the fact that it motivates logging.

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

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

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

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

Their study suggests this is highly bothersome when it comes to impacts 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 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 nations aren't available however the circulation of UCO is likely to be comparable.

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

By comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed 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 things that they were formerly using it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

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

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

Another significant issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

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

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no testing of the materials is performed, some experts believe scams is swarming.

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 certification schemes in place.

"It is commonly known that the European Commission has taken pertinent actions to entirely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

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

"The combination of revised certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems develop in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

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

The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and aviation aiming to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, need for UCO could double over the next years.

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and risks of using 'fake' UCO, potentially leading to indirect impacts such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

Related topics

COP26

Paris climate agreement

Climate