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 questions the environmental 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 used to make biodiesel it saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the demand across Europe that imports now represent 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.

Without any testing of what’s being available in, specialists think it is also ripe for scams.

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Reducing emissions from transport is showing to be among the most difficult difficulties for federal governments all over the world.

They’ve motivated the use of biofuels as an important means of curbing carbon from cars and lorries.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were when widely utilized as parts of biodiesel however this practice has been widely discredited due to the fact that it encourages logging.

So for the last years or two, using used has actually broadened enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being a crucial part of biodiesel with a reliable industry emerging throughout Europe to collect and process the product.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year because 2014, there simply isn’t enough chip fat to walk around.

According to a report from the campaign group Transport & Environment, external, majority of the UCO utilized in Europe is imported.

Their study recommends this is highly troublesome when it concerns effect on the environment.

While UCO is considered a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has actually 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 countries aren’t readily available but the flow of UCO is most likely to be comparable.

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 individuals, managed to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

“Because we are buying it, they have actually less utilized cooking oil to use on the things that they were previously using it for,” stated Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

“And they’re simply purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is mostly palm oil, since that’s the most inexpensive oil readily available.

“So indirectly, we’re just motivating more logging in Southeast Asia.”

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is frequently greater than palm oil. The worry is that some unscrupulous traders are merely watering down deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no testing of the materials is performed, some specialists believe fraud is rife.

The recommendation of scams 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 location.

“It is widely known that the European Commission has taken pertinent steps to entirely 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 ensure that trading, accreditation and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.

“The mix of modified accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability concerns arise in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain,” he informed BBC News.

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

The report from Transport & Environment points out that with shipping and air travel wanting to decarbonise by using biofuels, need for UCO could double over the next years.

“Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and risks of utilizing ‘phony’ UCO, possibly leading to indirect effects such as logging.”

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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