1 Climate Change: Growing Doubts Over Chip Fat Biofuel
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Climate modification: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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

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

Without any testing of what's coming in, experts believe it is likewise ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports might increase logging

Consumers pose 'growing danger' to tropical forests

Reducing emissions from transport is proving to be one of the hardest difficulties for governments all over the world.

They've motivated the usage of biofuels as a crucial methods of suppressing carbon from cars and trucks and trucks.

Biofuels are normally a mix of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or veggies.

The fact that these crops can be re-grown and soak up more CO2 implies they counteract the carbon given off when utilized in engines.

Soy and palm oil were when extensively utilized as elements of biodiesel but this practice has been commonly challenged since it motivates deforestation.

So for the last decade or so, the use of used cooking oil has expanded enormously as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually become a crucial part of biodiesel with an efficient market springing up across Europe to collect and process the product.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from UCO increasing by around 40% every year given that 2014, there just 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 study recommends this is extremely troublesome when it comes to 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 utilized to feed animals. The report raises the question of what people in these countries 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 offered but the circulation of UCO is most 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 use on the things that they were formerly utilizing it for," stated Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're just purchasing more virgin oil which virgin oil is largely palm oil, because that's the least expensive oil offered.

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

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the cost of UCO is frequently greater than palm oil. The worry is that some deceitful traders are just diluting deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of different types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no screening of the products is brought out, some professionals believe fraud 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 say there are robust certification schemes in location.

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

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

"The mix of revised accreditation schemes and the and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems occur in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are worried that the database concept, which was very first mooted in 2018, might not be reliable in stemming thought scams.

The report from Transport & Environment explains that with shipping and air travel wanting to decarbonise by using biofuels, demand for UCO could double over the next years.

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

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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