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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research concerns the environmental effect of increasing imports of used 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 saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the need across Europe that imports now account for more than half of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

With no screening of what's being available in, professionals think it is likewise ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports might boost deforestation

Consumers position 'growing danger' to tropical forests

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

They've encouraged making use of biofuels as an essential ways of curbing carbon from automobiles and lorries.

Biofuels are usually 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 suggests they counteract the carbon discharged when used in .

Soy and palm oil were when commonly used as components of biodiesel however this practice has been extensively discredited because it encourages logging.

So for the last decade approximately, using utilized cooking oil has actually expanded massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being an essential element of biodiesel with a reliable market 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 since 2014, there simply isn't adequate chip fat to walk around.

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

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

While UCO is considered a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been utilized 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 available however the flow of UCO is likely to be similar.

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

By comparison, 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 used cooking oil to utilize on the important things that they were previously utilizing it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're simply purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is largely palm oil, because that's the most inexpensive oil readily available.

"So indirectly, we're simply motivating more deforestation in Southeast Asia."

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

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

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transport, and no testing of the products is brought out, some experts believe scams is swarming.

The idea of scams 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 place.

"It is widely known that the European Commission has 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 developed by the EU will ensure that trading, accreditation and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will need to be registered.

"The mix of revised accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will make sure that no sustainability issues occur in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are concerned that the database idea, which was very first mooted in 2018, might not be efficient in stemming presumed scams.

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

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and dangers of using 'phony' UCO, possibly resulting in indirect impacts such as logging."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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