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 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 conserves carbon emissions by displacing fossil oil.

But such is the demand throughout Europe that imports now account for majority of the UCO that's made into fuel.

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

With no screening of what's being available in, experts think it is also ripe for fraud.

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

They've motivated the use of biofuels as an important ways of suppressing carbon from automobiles and trucks.

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 cancel out the carbon given off when utilized in engines.

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

So for the last years or two, using utilized cooking oil has actually expanded massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have actually become a crucial element of biodiesel with an efficient industry 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 given that 2014, there simply isn't enough chip fat to walk 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 suggests this is extremely troublesome when it concerns effects on the environment.

While UCO is thought about a waste material in the UK, in China, Indonesia and Malaysia it has long been used to feed animals. The report raises the question 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 offered however the circulation of UCO is most likely to be similar.

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

By contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed to around five million litres of UCO in 2019.

"Because we are buying it, they have actually less used cooking oil to use on the important things that they were formerly utilizing it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're simply buying more virgin oil which virgin oil is largely palm oil, since that's the cheapest oil offered.

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

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the cost of UCO is often higher than palm oil. The worry is that some unscrupulous traders are just watering down deliveries of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are mixed in bulk for transport, and no testing of the materials is performed, some professionals think scams is rife.

The idea of scams anywhere along the chain of supply is rejected by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who say there are robust certification schemes in place.

"It is widely understood that the European Commission has taken pertinent actions to entirely suppress unsound market practices in biofuel markets," said Angel Alberdi, EWABA's secretary general.

He says a new database being established by the EU will ensure that trading, certification and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will need to be signed up.

"The combination of modified certification plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will make sure that no sustainability issues emerge in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he informed BBC News.

Others in the field are concerned that the database concept, which was first mooted in 2018, may not be efficient in stemming believed fraud.

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

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and risks of utilizing 'phony' UCO, potentially resulting in indirect effects such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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