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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study questions the ecological impact of rising imports of utilized 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 conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

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

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

With no screening of what's can be found in, professionals think it is also ripe for fraud.

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

They've encouraged making use of biofuels as a crucial means of suppressing carbon from vehicles and trucks.

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

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

Soy and palm oil were as soon as extensively utilized as components of biodiesel however this practice has been commonly discredited due to the fact that it motivates deforestation.

So for the last years or two, using used cooking oil has broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually ended up being a key element of biodiesel with an efficient market springing up throughout Europe to gather and process the product.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year since 2014, there just isn't adequate chip fat to go around.

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

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

While UCO is thought about a waste product in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has actually long been used to . The report raises the concern of what individuals 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 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 comparison, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, handled to gather around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're simply purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is mainly palm oil, since that's the cheapest oil 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 cost of UCO is often greater than palm oil. The concern is that some unscrupulous traders are merely diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transportation, and no screening of the products is performed, some experts think scams is swarming.

The recommendation 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 certification schemes in place.

"It is commonly known that the European Commission has taken appropriate actions to entirely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He states a new database being developed by the EU will make sure that trading, certification and sustainability information on all bio-liquids will need to be registered.

"The combination of modified certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability concerns develop 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 reliable in stemming believed scams.

The report from Transport & Environment mentions that with shipping and air travel aiming to decarbonise by utilizing biofuels, demand for UCO might double over the next decade.

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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