Climate change: Growing doubts over chip fat biofuel

21 April 2021

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New research questions the ecological impact of increasing imports of utilized 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 saves 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 study, external, there's no chance to show these imports are sustainable.

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

Used cooking oil imports might boost logging

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

They've motivated using biofuels as a crucial methods of suppressing carbon from automobiles and lorries.

are normally a mix of nonrenewable fuel source and oil made from plants or vegetables.

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

Soy and palm oil were once widely used as elements of biodiesel but this practice has actually been commonly discredited since it encourages logging.

So for the last decade or two, making use of utilized cooking oil has actually broadened massively as an alternative feedstock for fuel.

Chip fat and other waste oils have become an essential part of biodiesel with an effective industry springing up throughout Europe to gather and process the product.

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

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

Their study recommends this is highly problematic when it comes 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 used to feed animals. The report raises the concern 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 readily available however the circulation 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 gathered and exported to the UK and Ireland alone.

By contrast, Thailand, which has a population of 70 million people, managed to gather around 5 million litres of UCO in 2019.

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

"And they're simply buying more virgin oil and that virgin oil is mostly palm oil, because that's the most affordable oil offered.

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

Another major problem with UCO is the suspicion of fraud.

Because of need from Europe, the price of UCO is often higher than palm oil. The worry is that some dishonest traders are merely diluting shipments of UCO with palm.

As oils of various types are blended in bulk for transportation, and no testing of the products is carried out, some specialists think fraud is swarming.

The idea 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 schemes in place.

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

He states a brand-new database being established by the EU will ensure that trading, accreditation and sustainability data on all bio-liquids will have to be registered.

"The mix of modified accreditation plans and the pan-EU track and trace database will guarantee that no sustainability problems emerge in the entire biofuels and bio-liquids supply chain," he told BBC News.

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

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

"Rising the demand beyond sustainable supply levels would increase these issues, and threats of using 'phony' UCO, potentially leading to indirect effects such as deforestation."

Follow Matt on Twitter @mattmcgrathbbc, external.

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