1 Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel

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Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study questions the environmental effect of increasing imports of utilized 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 across Europe that imports now represent majority of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

Without any testing of what's can be found in, experts think it is also ripe for fraud.

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Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be one of the for governments all over the world.

They have actually motivated making use of biofuels as an important ways of suppressing carbon from cars and lorries.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were when extensively utilized as elements of biodiesel but this practice has actually been widely rejected due to the fact that it encourages logging.

So for the last decade or so, making use of utilized cooking oil has actually broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have become an essential part of biodiesel with an efficient market emerging throughout Europe to gather and process the item.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year since 2014, there merely isn't enough 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 research study suggests this is highly troublesome when it comes to influence 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 nations 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 available however the circulation of UCO is most likely to be similar.

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 people, managed to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are purchasing it, they have less utilized cooking oil to use on the important things that they were formerly using it for," stated Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're simply purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is mainly palm oil, because that's the least expensive oil readily available.

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

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

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

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is performed, some experts believe scams 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 accreditation plans in place.

"It is widely understood that the European Commission has actually taken relevant steps 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, certification and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will need to be signed up.

"The combination of revised certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability issues emerge in the whole biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are concerned that the database concept, which was first mooted in 2018, might not be effective in stemming believed fraud.

The report from Transport & Environment points out that with shipping and aviation aiming to decarbonise by using biofuels, demand for UCO could double over the next years.

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and threats of utilizing 'fake' UCO, potentially leading to indirect effects such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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