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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research questions the environmental effect of increasing 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 need across Europe that imports now represent over half of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

With no testing of what's can be found in, specialists believe it is also ripe for scams.

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Reducing emissions from transportation is showing to be among the toughest difficulties for federal governments all over the world.

They have actually motivated making use of biofuels as an essential means of curbing carbon from vehicles and trucks.

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 absorb more CO2 means they cancel out the carbon produced when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were when widely used as parts of biodiesel however this practice has actually been commonly discredited because it logging.

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

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually become a crucial part of biodiesel with a reliable industry springing up across Europe to gather and process the product.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year considering that 2014, there merely isn't sufficient chip fat to go 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 suggests this is extremely troublesome when it comes to effect on the environment.

While UCO is considered a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been used to feed animals. The report raises the question of what individuals 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 likely to be similar.

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 collect around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mostly palm oil, since that's the most affordable oil readily available.

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of scams.

Because of demand from Europe, the rate of UCO is typically greater than palm oil. The worry is that some unethical traders are merely watering down deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transportation, and no testing of the products is brought out, some experts 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 widely known that the European Commission has taken appropriate actions to completely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He says a brand-new database being developed by the EU will guarantee that trading, certification and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will need to be signed up.

"The combination of modified accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability concerns occur in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

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

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

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and risks of using 'fake' UCO, possibly resulting in indirect effects such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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