Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel

Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

remarks

354 Comments

New research concerns 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 need across Europe that imports now account for majority of the UCO that’s made into fuel.

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

With no testing of what’s can be found in, professionals think it is also ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports might enhance logging

Consumers posture ‘growing hazard’ to tropical forests

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

They’ve encouraged using biofuels as an important ways of suppressing carbon from automobiles and trucks.

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 take in more CO2 indicates they cancel out the carbon discharged when used in engines.

Soy and palm oil were when commonly used as elements of biodiesel however this practice has been widely discredited because it motivates deforestation.

So for the last years or two, the usage of used cooking oil has actually broadened enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being an essential part of with an efficient market springing up throughout Europe to collect and process the item.

But with the quantity of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year since 2014, there simply 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 bothersome 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 long been used to feed animals. The report raises the concern of what individuals in these nations are changing 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 comparable.

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 five million litres of UCO in 2019.

“Because we are buying it, they have less used cooking oil to utilize on the important things that they were previously 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 readily available.

“So indirectly, we’re simply motivating more logging in Southeast Asia.”

Another significant issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the rate of UCO is frequently 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 transport, and no testing of the products is brought out, some professionals think scams is rife.

The suggestion of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is rejected 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 actually taken appropriate actions to completely curb unsound market practices in biofuel markets,” said 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 have to be registered.

“The combination of modified accreditation plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability concerns occur in the whole 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, may not be reliable in stemming suspected scams.

The report from Transport & Environment explains that with shipping and air travel aiming 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 using ‘phony’ UCO, possibly resulting in indirect effects such as logging.”

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

Related topics

COP26

Paris climate contract

Climate