Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns the ecological impact of increasing imports of utilized cooking oil (UCO) into the UK and Europe.

Chip fat and other oils are thought about 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 for majority of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

With no screening of what's coming in, experts think it is also ripe for fraud.

Used cooking oil imports might boost logging

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Reducing emissions from transportation is proving to be one of the most difficult obstacles for governments all over the world.

They've motivated making use of biofuels as an important methods of suppressing carbon from automobiles and lorries.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as widely utilized as parts of biodiesel however this practice has been commonly challenged because it motivates logging.

So for the last decade approximately, using used cooking oil has broadened enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being a crucial component of biodiesel with an effective industry springing up across 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 merely isn't enough chip fat to walk around.

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

Their research study recommends this is highly troublesome when it comes to influence on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste material 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 countries aren't available but the flow of UCO is most likely to be similar.

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

By comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million individuals, handled to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are buying it, they have actually less used 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 largely palm oil, because that's the cheapest oil readily available.

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the price of UCO is typically greater than palm oil. The concern is that some deceitful traders are merely diluting shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are blended in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is performed, some professionals think fraud is swarming.

The tip of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is declined by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who state there are robust accreditation schemes in place.

"It is widely understood that the European Commission has taken appropriate actions to completely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," stated Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

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

"The mix of modified certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability concerns emerge in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database idea, which was very first mooted in 2018, may not be efficient in stemming believed scams.

The report from Transport & Environment explains that with shipping and aviation wanting to decarbonise by using biofuels, need for UCO might double over the next decade.

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and dangers of utilizing 'phony' UCO, possibly resulting in indirect effects such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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