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Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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

Chip fat and other oils are thought about waste, so when they are used to make biodiesel it saves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the demand 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 show these imports are sustainable.

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

Used cooking oil imports might increase deforestation

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

They've motivated making use of biofuels as a crucial ways of curbing carbon from cars and trucks and lorries.

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

The truth that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 suggests they counteract the carbon emitted when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were once widely used as parts of biodiesel however this practice has actually been commonly rejected since it encourages deforestation.

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

Chip fat and other waste oils have ended up being an essential part of biodiesel with an efficient industry emerging across Europe to collect and process the product.

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

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

Their research study recommends this is extremely troublesome when it concerns 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 people in these 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 however the circulation of UCO is likely to be similar.

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

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

"Because we are purchasing it, they have actually less utilized cooking oil to utilize 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 mainly palm oil, because that's the most inexpensive oil offered.

"So indirectly, we're simply encouraging more logging in Southeast Asia."

Another significant problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the cost of UCO is often higher than palm oil. The concern is that some unethical traders are simply diluting shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transport, and no screening of the products is performed, some specialists think fraud is swarming.

The suggestion of fraud anywhere along the chain of supply is declined by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who say there are robust certification schemes in location.

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

He states a new database being developed by the EU will make sure that trading, accreditation and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be signed up.

"The combination of modified certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will ensure that no sustainability issues 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, may not work in stemming suspected fraud.

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

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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