Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel

Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study concerns the ecological 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 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.

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

Used cooking oil imports might boost deforestation

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

They’ve motivated using biofuels as an essential methods of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks and lorries.

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

The fact that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 suggests they counteract the carbon released when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were once widely utilized as elements of biodiesel but this practice has been extensively discredited because it motivates logging.

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

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being an essential element of biodiesel with a reliable market emerging across Europe to collect and process the product.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year since 2014, there merely 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 study suggests this is highly troublesome when it concerns 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 . The report raises the question of what individuals 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 offered but the flow 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 contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed to collect around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

“Because we are purchasing it, they have less used cooking oil to utilize on the important things that they were previously using it for,” stated Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

“And they’re simply purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mainly palm oil, since that’s the most affordable oil available.

“So indirectly, we’re simply motivating more deforestation in Southeast Asia.”

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is typically higher than palm oil. The worry is that some unscrupulous traders are just diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no screening of the materials is brought out, some professionals think scams is rife.

The recommendation 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 accreditation schemes in location.

“It is commonly understood that the European Commission has taken relevant steps to totally suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets,” said Angel Alberdi, EWABA’s secretary general.

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

“The mix of revised certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability concerns emerge in the whole 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, might not work in stemming believed fraud.

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

“Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and dangers of using ‘phony’ UCO, potentially resulting in indirect impacts such as deforestation.”

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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