Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research study questions the ecological impact of increasing 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 demand across Europe that imports now represent majority 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.

With no screening of what's can be found in, specialists believe it is also ripe for scams.

Used cooking oil imports may improve deforestation

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Reducing emissions from transportation is proving to be one of the most difficult difficulties for governments all over the world.

They've encouraged making use of biofuels as an essential ways of suppressing carbon from automobiles and trucks.

Biofuels are usually a blend of fossil fuel and oil made from plants or veggies.

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

Soy and palm oil were once commonly utilized as components of biodiesel but this practice has been commonly discredited because it motivates deforestation.

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

Chip fat and other waste oils have become a key part of biodiesel with an effective industry emerging across Europe to collect and process the item.

But with the amount of biodiesel made from by around 40% every year given that 2014, there just isn't sufficient chip fat to walk around.

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

Their study suggests this is highly troublesome when it pertains to influence 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 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 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 utilized oil that's gathered and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed 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 utilizing it for," said Greg Archer with Transport & Environment.

"And they're simply buying more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mainly palm oil, because that's the most inexpensive oil readily available.

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

Another major issue with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of demand from Europe, the price of UCO is typically 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 mixed in bulk for transport, and no screening of the materials is performed, some experts believe scams is swarming.

The tip of scams anywhere along the chain of supply is rejected by the European Waste-to-Advanced Biofuels Association (EWABA), who state there are robust certification plans in location.

"It is extensively understood that the European Commission has taken pertinent steps to totally 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, certification and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be registered.

"The combination of modified accreditation schemes and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability issues arise 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 first mooted in 2018, may not work in stemming believed scams.

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

"Rising the need beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these concerns, and threats of utilizing 'phony' UCO, possibly causing indirect effects such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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